Picture shows snake tied in a knot.
A post on social media platform Reddit is going viral for a bizarre reason. The photo in it shows something which is not commonly visible - a snake tied in a knot. The man who shared the post said the snake was found in this condition outside his home, adding that he threw away the snake after clicking the photo. The post has more than 60,000 upvotes, with many users suspecting that the snake did not get like this on its own. The exact species of the snake visible in the photo is unknown.
"This snake that knotted themselves up and died on my deck," reads the caption of the post.
It doesn't describe the location too where the picture was clicked.
Snakes may unintentionally harm themselves in this way. The behaviour is mostly observed in pythons and boa constrictors, which coil around their prey to suffocate it, according to Newsweek.
It further said that the most likely scenario for this is a rare disease called inclusion body disease (IBD). According to US government's National Library of Medicine, IBD remains one of the most notorious viral diseases with a global distribution in captive boas and pythons. The agency further said that the disease and is characterised by the presence of eosinophilic or amphophilic intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies (IB) in neurons and glial cells from the central nervous system (CNS), epithelial cells from various organs, smooth muscle tissue, lymphoid cells in esophageal tonsils and peripheral blood cells.
IBD was first dicovered in the 1980s. In snakes, Ebola-like virus affects the central nervous system, which causes them to tie into knots and die.
The latest post led to a discussion on Reddit forum, with many users offering their expert comments.
"With the experience with snakes I have I would says I've never seen a snake get themselves into a knot they couldn't easily get out of. Especially not a tight one? How would a snake honestly tie themselves [into] a tight knot like this," said another.
"It amuses me thinking that someone left that there to threaten this guy and he just went "oh shit honey look what this stupid snake did! Poor snake tho," wrote one user.
Another said, "I wonder if OP got knotted up and left on someone else's porch as a threat."
But the person who shared the post denied doing any such thing. "I don't like snakes. I don't touch snakes. I saw this in the morning, snapped a pic and then used a leaf to push it into a bucket and threw it in the compost," the user InspktrGdgt said.
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