Tongue sheds?? What am I talking about, you say? Last night when I removed the water bowl from one of my ball pythons’ cages, I noticed a tongue shed stuck to the inside wall of the bowl. Well, actually, it was just the part which had covered one of the tips of the tongue. Either snakes usually don’t remove both halves at the same time, or I just only usually find one half. This process is not synchronous with the shedding of the body skin; the snake I’m referring to here had last shed in August.
Some years ago, a friend drew my attention to a short note by Carl Kauffeld published in 1945 in Herpetologica entitled “Ecdysis of the Tongue in Snakes.” If anyone is interested, I’ll post it. (Just thought I’d see if anyone actually read this post!). It makes sense that snakes would periodically renew the covering of such a vital piece of their body, but I guess it had never occurred to me.
Anyone else ever notice these sheds? It helps in finding them if the snake has a very darkly-pigmented tongue and if you use light-colored water bowls.
-Joan
