For most people, the word "snake" is scary enough, never mind the beasts themselves. However, Li Heng, a 27 years old photographer living in Chongqing, keeps over 100 snakes at his apartment.

These snakes are kept in a special quiet and air-conditioned room. Each of them is put in a plastic box with a label on it to show their type.

Li started keeping his first snake at home in 2004. Afterwards, he couldn't stop collecting them. The number of snakes he kept even rose to over 300 at its peak.

"I kept some laboratory mice as their food and you only need to feed them once a week.  Every year, I spend about 20,000 yuan ($3,292) on their food," Li said.

"Keeping snakes gives me a sense of achievement. Different types of snakes or snakes of the same type but with different colors can be mated  to produce new types."

Li said that his mother told everyone that her son had an abnormal hobby of keeping snakes at home when he just started, but now as his mother has more understanding of the snakes, she even helps to look after them when he is away.

Chongqing Evening News