My dad found this very little guy in the mulch in our yard yesterday.



He was obviously super cute, but something was strange about his tongue? His tongue never fully went inside of his mouth, it was just sticking out, not flicking. And instead of being forked, it ended bluntly, almost as if it had been cut off at some point and scarred over. I've never seen this in a snake before. Any clues as to what could have caused this? We set him free. I felt bad letting him go if he was injured, but there were no other signs of anything wrong with him. Hopefully it doesn't affect his ability to eat or anything. I would've considered keeping him and monitoring him if I was more prepared! I also don't think we know much about keeping Dekay's brown snakes in captivity...



Anyway I just wanted to share his pics here, and to see if anyone knew anything about the weird condition of his tongue.