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."

h/tInsider

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James Chrisman is a News Writer at Thrillist. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @james_chrisman2.