14 DAY TRIAL // A few days back, a woman living in Australia spotted a brown tree snake hanging around her home. At first, the woman, decided to let the animal be, hoping that it would go away on its own.
However, when the snake refused to head back to the forest on its own accord, she saw fit to call Matt Hagan, a wildlife specialist working with Cairns Snake Catchers.
When the man arrived at her house and went in search of the snake, he expected that this would be an easy case. However, what he found nearly sent him running for the hills. Screaming.
Matt Hagan says that, when he laid eyes on the snake, the reptile was wriggling in pain on the woman's doorstep. It had its teeth sunk into its own neck and was just minutes away from dying after having injected venom into its own body.
A most peculiar death
The incident is said to have occurred in Earville, an urban area in Australia's Cairns regional unit, towards the end of last week. More precisely, it was on Saturday that the woman spotted the snake that eventually killed itself on her doorstep.
As mentioned, the woman first assumed that the snake would go away on its own. She waited for about half an hour for it to return to its home in the forest before figuring out that something was seriously off and deciding to contact the folks at Cairns Snake Catchers.
Shortly after arriving at the woman's house, wildlife specialist Matt Hagan went in search of the snake, looking to catch it and take it back to its home in the forest. Things didn't quite work out as planned.
By the time Matt Hagan got to it, the snake was already enjoying a nice cup of tea with the Grim Reaper. Otherwise put, it had bit itself so badly and had injected so much venom into its body that it was just minutes away from dying.
“Usually when the snake is outside, it goes away after a while and no one every sees it again. But she said it was still wriggling after half an hour so I went over to relocate it,” Matt Hagan said in a statement, as cited by Daily Mail.
“I could immediately see something wasn't quite right with the snake. When I picked it up I noticed it was still biting down firmly on its neck. I thought what on earth – it looked like it had bitten its own neck and died,” he added.
Did the snake really commit suicide?
Having examined the brown tree snake's body, Matt Hagan concluded that the animal most likely bit itself after being stung by some insect. Thus, the man says that the reptile probably sunk its teeth into its own body hoping to relieve some of the pain caused by this sting. Unfortunately, it ended up killing itself.
Although Matt Hagan has never before seen a snake that died after injecting venom into its own body, it appears that such incidents are not all that rare. On the contrary, it often happens that these reptiles bite themselves after suffering one injury or another.
As Matt Hagan put it, “When they do have a trauma they do try and bite around the area. I suspect the snake didn't end its own life on purpose, but was possibly in severe pain and ended up in this unfortunate position.”
