Hoop snake

 ( Fearsome Critters ) 

The hoop snake is a legendary creature of the United States, Canada, and Australia.

It appears in the Pecos Bill stories; although his description of hoop snakes is the one with which people are most familiar, stories of the creature predate those fictional tales considerably. Several sightings of the hoop snake have been alleged along the Minnesota–Wisconsin border in the St. Croix River valley (Recently Hudson, Wisconsin), Wake County and Watauga County in North Carolina, Prince Edward Island, and Kamloops, British Columbia.

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In folklore According to folklore, the distinguishing feature of a hoop snake is that it can grasp its tail in its jaws, like the ouroboros of Greek mythology, and roll after its prey like a wheel. In one version of the myth, the snake straightens out at the last second, skewering its victim with its venomous tail. The only escape is to hide behind a tree, which receives the deadly blow instead and promptly dies from the poison.

An Australian rendition of the myth describes a circular-shaped snake roughly the size of a steering wheel with a set of elongated spines evenly spaced along the inner lining of its circular-shaped body. It is hypothesised that the snake has the ability to rapidly constrict, quickly reducing the circumferences of its body to entrap the limb of a kangaroo, wallaby, dingo or human.

The hoop snake is mentioned in a letter from 1784 (published in Tour in the U.S.A., Vol. I, p. 263-65. London):

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Sightings

Purported sightings are still occasionally reported, though the existence of the hoop snake has never been accepted by the scientific community. Natural history Raymond Ditmars placed $10,000 in trust fund at a New York bank for the first person to provide evidence of a hoop snake.Ford, Joe, Haunts to Hookers., from the chapter "Snakes: Fact or Fable", pgs. 80-84. Some have suggested it is a distorted description of the sidewinder of the American Southwest, or of , which will occasionally lie in a loose hoop shape. The hoop snake possibly is an embellishment of actual instances of snakes swallowing their own tails, mistaking them for prey.

The Pseudorabdion ( Pseudorabdion longiceps) of Southeast Asia has been filmed 'cartwheeling' as an escape mechanism, superficially similar to the behavior described for the hoop snake.

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See also

• Amphisbaena
• Fearsome critters
• Joint snake
• Ouroboros
• Tsuchinoko
• Rotating locomotion in living systems
• Serpent (symbolism)
• Snow snake

Categories: Fearsome Critters, Fictional Snakes, Legendary Serpents, Australian Legendary Creatures, Pecos Bill, Reptilian Cryptids

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