Hoop-Snake - [Fearsome Critter]

 The Hoop-Snake - [Fearsome Critter]

• About this critter:

The 'Hoop-Snake' is a well known menace, a viper similar in appearance to a black rattle snake, native to the deserts & mountains of Americas southwest, Australia (and apparently Kamloops BC Canada!)- its best know for biting onto its tail and rolling around like a tire when hunting. its said to able to reach speeds of 60mph!

Instead of a rattle, the tip of it’s tail has a horn which produces a deadly venom: it kills so quickly that no one has bothered to try and find a cure!!! - it's often said that the best way to avoid a hoop snake is to jump over a fence and keep running (as the snake will have to uncoil to get through, quickly losing its momentum.) - other accounts say you have to jump through the hoop as the snake only attacks whats directly in front of it. (thankfully its aim isn't the best: there are more stories about the snake missing its target than there are stories about victims.) the venom is often said to be so poisonous that even tools, trees & rocks which where accidentally stung would react to It would swelling up to immense sizes: "Hoop-Snake Mountain" somewhere in  the ozarks near "Roark Creek" South Missouri was also said to have been the result of It’s sting. 

[a doomed young man, 1896.] 

in the 1930’s the United States’ leading herpetologist, Raymond Ditmars placed a $10,000 reward in trust in a New York City bank for the first person who produced definitive proof of the Hoop Snake. - Such a bounty brings to mind the yokai/cryptid Tsuchinoko, which also has a similar 10k bounty on its head, they're quite alike in that they both roll about, However notably, unlike Tsuchinoko. (which actively rolls to get around) The Hoop Snake rolls exclusively when it's hunting down prey!

I suppose i should mention "Ouroboros" a snake eating its own tail, but that's something else entirely which dates back to ancient greeks & egyptians.

There was also a recent 'hoopsnake sighting' in Vancouver/Kamloops area as well. where in an actual snake hitched on the underbelly a Ferrari to Vancouver. - the snake was given the nick name: "Enzo" (presumably after Enzo Ferrari.) "Enzo" also means "circle" in Japanese, which looks kind of like a snake eating it's own tail, you could say its come full circle!!

[Fearsome critters 1936]

• In April of 2023 somersaulting snakes where observed in Malaysia. (theres even video proof of this!)

• Sticker Art by SamKalensky (yo thats me!) part of my cryptids and critters sticker collection! check my shop & follow @samkalensky for many more!