i thought this was neat.
story: https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/...his/ar-BBNwdfc
A snake named Toothless got braces to fix her overbite and you need to see this
A green tree python named Toothless recently broke a part of her jawbone while eating.
According to a Facebook post from HerpVet, an animal hospital in Mount Ommaney, Australia, specializing in reptiles, Toothless was in the middle of enjoying her dinner when "Somehow, during the swallowing process her left lower jawbone folded and got stuck on her throat."
The python was left with an overbite and a resemblance to a vaguely perturbed Muppet. Seeing their animal in distress, Toothless’s owners rushed her to the hospital where an X-ray revealed a break in her jawbone.
Surgery would have been risky, as the bone was too small and fragile to mend using traditional methods. So doctors came up with a truly visionary solution: Braces. Snake braces.
The veterinarians realigned Toothless’ jaw and used a paperclip to craft an external brace, affixing it to her scales using a non-toxic super glue. It fell off the next day but was reapplied. This time, it stayed on “until she shed and this was long enough to allow her to heal,” wrote HerpVet.
Doctors also posited that the python broke her jaw in the first place because she’d recently laid eggs, which weakened her jaw and made her mandible bones more susceptible to fracturing.
"She was given pain relief and placed on a calcium supplement to aid in the healing process," the doctors explained. "Food will be withheld for a couple of weeks at which point a final x-ray will be taken to confirm healing has completed."
Here is Toothless, all healed up at her final checkup, with “only a single damaged scale to show anything ever happened.”
"Thank you so much for fixing my Toothless up!" owner Bo Marsh commented on HerpVet’s Facebook post. "She’s feeling much better and constantly begging me for food. She’s gonna have to wait a bit longer
yay, i'm happy for Toothless the GTP. she's a very pretty girl. anyways here's the original post on FB: https://www.facebook.com/herpvet.com...54313111324718 and some pix:
also i like charming opening paragraph of this one: https://www.thrillist.com/news/natio...ss-got-braces#
A SNAKE NAMED TOOTHLESS GOT BRACES TO FIX HER OVERBITE, SO SNAKES ARE COOL NOW
Snakes are scary in part because it's so hard to relate to them. They have no legs, can swallow animals whole, and basically just look like Hieronymus Bosch doodles. But maybe we'd all get along better if we had something in common. Something like embarrassing memories of how we all used to wear braces.
Well, it's a great day for human-reptile relations because we're about to introduce you to a cute snake with braces. Her name is Toothless -- and no, we're not making that up. She's a green tree python who injured her jawbone while eating. And we speak for the entire human race when we say, we love her.
After her injury, Toothless' owner took her to HerpVet, an animal hospital in Mount Ommaney, Australia, which treated her and thankfully shared her story with the world in a Facebook post. The poor snake was eating dinner and "during the swallowing process her left lower jawbone folded and got stuck on her throat." They speculated that her jaw was weakened because she'd recently laid eggs. We can all agree that that sounds horrible and wouldn't want that to happen to us -- see how much we have in common?
Toothless ended up with a pretty ridiculous overbite, and an X-ray showed there was a small break in her jawbone. But the bone was too small for surgery. Hence: Toothless got some braces. These braces were actually made out of a paper clip super-glued to her scales (so much cheaper than the human kind). After one reapplication, the clip stayed in place "until she shed and this was long enough to allow her to heal."
She's been placed on pain-relief meds and is receiving a calcium supplement to help strengthen her. "Food will be withheld for a couple of weeks at which point a final X-ray will be taken to confirm healing has completed." Apparently, she's got "only a single damaged scale to show anything ever happened."
i remember seeing a social media post of an African House Snake swallowing a live bat. like the bat wasn't dead and it was trying to flex or flap it's wings inside of the snake. it seemed to refuse to die, so it was taken to a vet, were they put braces and bandages on the snake to keep the bat wings under control. i was unable to find a story to link to it tho.
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