Image courtesy of iStock.com/theasis
Nick Kepler
The tail-eating snake is one of the oldest stories known to mankind. According to ancient Egyptian legend, when the sun god Ra merged with the underworld lord Osiris to form the new gods, two snakes representing the guardian snake god Mehen crawled around the newborn super-god with their tails in their mouths. In Norse mythology, this snake is Jormungandr, a giant sea beast and one of the monstrous children of the god Loki. It is so large that it can encircle the whole world with its tail in its mouth. A prophecy says that one day it will emerge from the depths of the ocean with its tail coming out of its mouth, heralding Ragnarok, the end and rebirth of the earth.
In Hindu iconography, snakes often surround the god Shiva, the aspect of the god that represents destruction and transformation. Greek philosopher Plato portrayed the snake as an allegory for the universe, which is “self-sufficient” and “far superior to one lacking nothing.” More recently, snakes have been used as a plot device in “Shiva.” The X-Files In the form of FBI agent Dana Scully’s tattoo, she may represent her ongoing skepticism of the paranormal’s existence, despite her weekly encounters with it.
The tail-eating serpent, or serpent, is the Ouroboros. It has appeared in so many cultures for so long that Swiss psychologist Carl Jung considered it one of the primary archetypes of the human psyche. It usually represents cycles, eternal return, infinity, completion, self-containedness on a cosmic scale, and “things that go round and round like the Earth.” “This is a solar cycle,” according to Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.
Do these symbols unfold in nature, or did ancient storytellers draw inspiration from something they witnessed firsthand?
Do snakes bite their tails?
According to several news reports, they sometimes do. In 2014, a pet store owner Uploaded footage YouTube footage shows an albino western hognose squirming around a water bowl and trying to swallow itself (much to the dismay of the store owner, who was selling the rare snake for $717).
In 2009, a man living in Sussex, England Caught a KingsnakeReggie was taken to the vet after getting trapped in a loop of a snake trying to eat its own tail: the snake’s ratchet-like teeth caused the tail to get stuck in Reggie’s mouth, and the vet (who said he’d “never seen anything like it”) opened the jaws to free the snake.
The New Encyclopedia of Snakes Includes 2 There are numerous stories of American rat snakes dying by swallowing themselves. “One, in captivity, did this twice, and died the second time,” author Joseph C. Mitchell writes. “The other, a wild snake, was found in a tight circle, having swallowed about two-thirds of its body.”
James B. Murphy, a herpetologist and research scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, said the behavior is highly unusual and is usually a sign that the snake is near death.
“When snakes get sick, they start biting themselves in the final stages,” Murphy said. “I’ve seen rattlesnakes turn around and bite themselves.”
Unlike mammals, snakes don’t display emotions and rarely have behavioral responses to viruses or other illnesses, Murphy says. So don’t think of your snake biting itself as a sign you need to see a vet; other than stopping to eat, there are few signs your snake is sick. One reason snakes bite their tails is because being confined in a small space means they can’t fully extend their tails, and they may think their tail is another snake’s tail.
This explanation may be plausible, because the behavior most similar to ouroboros, and which is semi-common, is the tendency of certain snakes to eat other snakes. These opportunists include North American kingsnakes, garter snakes, ribbon snakes and several other species that are immune to the venom of most venomous snakes. Snakes have also been seen munching on their own shed skin, Murphy says.
For this reason, it is wise to research different snake species thoroughly before mixing them in the same enclosure.
Fortunately, ouroboros behavior is so rare that even snake breeders with decades of keeping numerous serpentine pets probably can’t expect to witness a real-life ouroboros — at least not until Ragnarok.
