No. Snakes are immune to their own venom. So even if they accidentally bite their tongue, nothing will happen. It must be said, however, that it is virtually impossible for a snake to bite its own tongue. The serpent’s tongue is very thin and only makes forward and backward movements – when it has its mouth closed. In order for the tongue to be reached by the teeth that inoculate the poison, located on the side of the mouth, the organ would have to make a curve to the sides, a very unlikely maneuver to be performed. In theory, the venom of one species of snake would even be effective against other species. In practice, however, this story of one snake biting another does not happen in nature. “The snakes that eat other snakes, such as the muçurana (Clelia scytalina), do not inoculate the venom to paralyze the prey. They swallow it all at once, by the head”, says biologist Osvaldo Augusto Sant’Anna, director of the Special Laboratory of Microbiology at the Butantan Institute, in São Paulo. 😛
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