Ouroboros!

[becala]

Wow, what a weird snake night. Both of them needed their cages cleaned badly, so I just busted it out all at once. My corn snake, PBRs, is too big for any of the temporary enclosures I have, and likes to climb my entertainment center, so I let him do that rather than tying him up in a pillowcase. Weeeeel I forgot that there's an air vent behind the entertainment center with holes big enough for him to fit through. I didn't see him crawling into it until he was like halfway in, and panicked and grabbed him by his midsection. If you've ever tried to get a snake to back out of a hole it's stuck its head into... well.

Pretty much there was nothing I could do other than squeeze him tight enough that he couldn't go any further and scream for Jason with visions of him ending up in the (unused) duct system, feral and eating mice and probably dying in there eventually and stinking the place up. It was fairly scary, too, because in addition to tensing up because he was scared, he flexed his midsection in a way that made me think I was hurting him. By the time Jason heard me and came up stairs, PBRs was already starting to back out, because it turns out the holes actually aren't big enough for him to fit all the way through. I just thought they were in my panic. So he's back in is cage now and happily eating, and I know better than to try to let him roam around while I'm distracted with anything.

And THEN, when I was feeding the little guy, Slartibartfast, I had something happen that I've been waiting and hoping for for a very long time:

My snake actually bit and swallowed a section of his own tail!

If I'd had time for pictures, I would have taken one. He was all curled in on himself when I went to feed him his mouse, and he missed and got a large chunk of his own tail, like a good inch and a half. It really did look like he swallowed a bit of it before regurgitating it and finding the mouse.

Fucking rad.

Comments

[amanda-mary.livejournal.com]

!!!

[aetherdrifter.livejournal.com]

Whoah. Is the tail going to be okay?? Will it regenerate? I'd probably freak the fuck out if I saw that happen, but the whole Ouroboros thing does make it kind of cool...

My friend's ball python tried to eat itself once. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but it was apparently striking at its own body, then latched on. She ended up having to dump cold water on it to get it to let go. Part of me wonders if it was inbred or something...I mean, what the fuck? Natural Selection Fail.

[becala.livejournal.com]

Heheh, he didn't hurt himself or actually masticate the tail. He just struck, got it, looked confused, and backed up off of it, working his throat in a way to make me thing that he had swallowed it and had to regurgitate a little. The tail looks undamaged. It was mostly just hilarious.

But I think the tails do regenerate somewhat when they grow. The cornsnake had a shedding problem when he was younger where the skin didn't come off of his tail right, and it looked mangled for the next five sheds, and then looked just fine.

[aetherdrifter.livejournal.com]

Oh, duh...that makes a lot more sense. I don't know why I imagined him chomping off a chunk of his own tail, haha. In that case, it is most definitely awesome.

dude.

[courting-chaos.livejournal.com]

freakin' awesome. I am supremely jealous I didn't get to witness this.