I went looking for snakes today and found a Nerodia fasciata. It looked fine except for this damage to the tail. Does anyone know what caused this? Is this some kind of bacterial rot? Snake fungal disease? More likely that its tail got chewed on by some predator?

I'm sort of leaning towards it being damage caused by a predator. Because if this is some kind of rot, it is SERIOUS rot. But the rest of the snake looks completely fine. I'm thinking that if the snake was in conditions sufficient to cause this kind of rot, that I'd probably be seeing some signs of the same thing happening elsewhere on its body.

Any ideas what caused this? Any ideas on what to do for treatment? Right now, regardless of what caused this, I'm concerned that there's enough damage to cause bone to be exposed. But in the meantime, I'm just applying antibiotic cream and hoping this all just works out.
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