Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I noticed a few of these in the water bowls and on the bottoms of my hognose snake enclosures. The more I started looking for them, the more I noticed they were in most of my hognose snake enclosures. As I tend toward the paranoid side where thing like internal parasites are concerned, I freaked out, took photographs, and sent them to Dr. Scott Stahl (spoke on reptile radio). He informed me that they are tongue sheds and that when he used to keep hognose snakes he found them in his own enclosures and identified them as tongue sheds by viewing them under a microscope. When they shrivel up on a dry plastic cage bottom, it's not hard to imagine them squiggling around in an intestine. Glad that wasn't the case! Happy Holloween!

Adam

Thanks for sharing Adam!

I too had a similiar experience a few years ago with a female hog shedding her tongue skin. In my case while I was holding her, she had actually flicked her tongue out, then kind of sloughed it off on my hand. At first I was a bit concerned because I didn't know what this was, but after a little bit of research, I too became informed that snakes do shed their tongue skin although it's still kinda weird to me. I think since that time, I've only found one other tongue skin in a bowl of water floating around.

Unfortunately, this was the best picture I could take of mine as my photography skills back then were awful at best:

-----
Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

I have seen those in my collection for years. At this time, I do not have any hogs and have not since 2003, but yep, I am very familiar with seeing tongue sheds. Very interesting, to say the least!
-----
Genesis 1:1

Thanks for sharing this info!
I had never noticed this but good to know...so I will not scare
if I find a tongue-shed in the future
-----
Greetings from Berlin
Stefan & Raimo

Reptiles-Breeding-Enterprise.com

lol... thats so cool i had no idea.
thanks haha how rad! and neat pics too.