Buzz
The saying 'you are what you eat' takes on a strikingly different meaning when your own tail becomes the meal.
In 2009, Bob Reynolds from Sussex was shocked to find his pet king snake, Reggie, 'devouring its own rear end.' A vet who examined the snake remarked, 'I’ve never encountered anything like it, though I’ve heard of such incidents.' Thankfully, after a careful 30-minute process of freeing Reggie’s teeth, the snake’s tail was preserved before digestion could take place.
What could have caused this strange behavior in the first place? In Reggie’s case, this feeding blunder was not far from his species' typical diet. King snakes (Lampropeltis getula) are known to eat smaller snakes, including venomous rattlesnakes, as demonstrated in the video below. It’s possible that Reggie mistook his own wriggling tail for a potential meal.
While Reggie managed to escape his unfortunate situation, not every snake has been so lucky. In The New Encyclopedia of Snakes, herpetologist Joseph C. Mitchell shares this account:
Some of the strangest reports of self-feeding behavior come from American rat snakes, Pantherophis obsoletus, who have been seen consuming themselves! One captive specimen attempted this twice, tragically dying after the second attempt. Another wild individual was found coiled tightly, having ingested about two-thirds of its own body.
For those curious to witness more, there’s a video (uploaded last January) featuring an albino Western Hognose snake (Heterodon nasicus) contorting itself into a 'donut' shape and devouring a significant portion of its own tail.
