Reggie the King snake soon realised his mistake after chomping down on his back end but then couldn't release himself after his teeth had taken hold.
Luckily the hungry reptile's owner arrived on the scene before the snake began to digest its own body, and rushed him to the vet.
'Its backward facing teeth were acting like a ratchet,' vet Bob Reynolds from Faygate, West Sussex told the Mail Online.
'The snake had also dislocated its jaw in its attempt to get its mouth around the tail and this isn't easy to reverse.'
Mr Reynolds was able to gently untangle Reggie by prising its jaws open a little wider and sliding the teeth off the flesh using a probe. The whole operation took only half an hour.
Source: dailymail