What would happen to a legless lizard that is able to regenerate its tail?

Originally posted by gambit05
What would happen to a legless lizard that is able to regenerate its tail?

Since a lot is still left wide open here, lets assume a hollow snake with a miniscule taper so tail could be infinitely coiled in upon itself, and no way for the snake to um... expel what its already eaten. In that case, the minimum diameter would be equal to 2*thickness and circumference would then be equal to pi*diameter.

In the end, it depends on how long of a mouth you're positing, what kind of thickness, as well as if you're really willing to allow infinite elasticity.

Taking inspiration from the movie Anaconda, i'd say

Half itself as then it would find its tail coming out from its mouth and it would have to stop, else it will start pushing the tail back inside in which case it would again straighten out....remember that the snake swollows food and then digest the entire prey.!!

It will stop half way when the tail (swallowed) reaches the end of the digestive tract. it would then digest itself and die. Imagine you taking the contents of your stomach, digestive enzymes Hydrocrolic acid. and then pouring over your body, first it would be very painful and after a while your cell structure would break down into mulch.

oh my god get a life you sad sad sad people. are you all really that lonely that this is all you have to do with your time. i dont know whether to laugh or cry your such sadcases

Originally posted by bavboyboy
oh my god get a life you sad sad sad people. are you all really that lonely that this is all you have to do with your time. i dont know whether to laugh or cry your such sadcases

Originally posted by Gafarnu
It will stop half way when the tail (swallowed) reaches the end of the digestive tract. it would then digest itself and die. Imagine you taking the contents of your stomach, digestive enzymes Hydrocrolic acid. and then pouring over your body, first it would be very painful and after a while your cell structure would break down into mulch.

Guys, this should be easy. The snake would die after a few bites from loss of blood.

Better yet, it's a toothless snake and it gags, chokes and dies after a fit of violent diarrhea.

We need some hypotheses regarding digestion.

Look, the question is fruitless if you try to solve it at face value.

Your options:

1] Give yourself a moment to consider the philosophical goals of the question and gain a bit of insight regarding one's self and the world around them.

or

2] Argue about the physical possibility of a snake eating itself.


You gain nothing from #2. Does it really matter if the snake could eat itself without dying?

If the snake were to eat itself it would not coil into itself indefinitely. Given that the snake must have some thickness and some measure of inelasticity to be a real object, it sould stop when either (1) it could not open its mouth any further to acommodate the nth passage of tail, or (2) it would face the physical limitation of its body being unable to decrease its size (girth) so that the tail may go further in.

People seen to also forget that a snak is not made entirely of muscular mass but is indeed a vertebrate. There will be a point where either (1) he will not be able to sqeeze his bones any further into its own body, or (2) his bones break and cause it extreme pain and great loss of function in the muscles atached to particular bone.


Regardless of all this, it is not a question of physical possibilities. Please move past this.

Thank you.