What is "hoop snake"

Hoop \Hoop\, n. [OE. hope; akin to D. hoep, hoepel.]

1. A pliant strip of wood or metal bent in a circular form, and united at the ends, for holding together the staves of casks, tubs, etc.

2. A ring; a circular band; anything resembling a hoop, as the cylinder (cheese hoop) in which the curd is pressed in making cheese.

3. A circle, or combination of circles, of thin whalebone, metal, or other elastic material, used for expanding the skirts of ladies' dresses; crinoline; -- used chiefly in the plural.

   Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale.
   --Pope.

4. A quart pot; -- so called because originally bound with hoops, like a barrel. Also, a portion of the contents measured by the distance between the hoops. [Obs.]

5. An old measure of capacity, variously estimated at from one to four pecks. [Eng.]
   --Halliwell.

   Bulge hoop, Chine hoop, Quarter hoop, the hoop nearest the middle of a cask, that nearest the end, and the intermediate hoop between these two, respectively.

   Flat hoop, a wooden hoop dressed flat on both sides.

   Half-round hoop, a wooden hoop left rounding and undressed on the outside.

   Hoop iron, iron in thin narrow strips, used for making hoops.

   Hoop lock, the fastening for uniting the ends of wooden hoops by notching and interlocking them.

   Hoop skirt, a framework of hoops for expanding the skirts of a woman's dress; -- called also hoop petticoat.

   Hoop snake (Zo["o]l.), a harmless snake of the Southern United States ( Abaster erythrogrammus); -- so called from the mistaken notion that it curves itself into a hoop, taking its tail into its mouth, and rolls along with great velocity.

   Hoop tree (Bot.), a small West Indian tree ( Melia sempervirens), of the Mahogany family.

n. A mythical creature of the United States and Australia, a snake that grasps its tail in its jaws and thereby rolls after its prey like a wheel.

n. any of various harmless North American snakes that were formerly believed to take tail in mouth and roll along like a hoop

The hoop snake is a legendary creature of the United States, Canada, and Australia. It appears in the Pecos Bill stories; although his description of hoop snakes is the one with which people are most familiar, stories of the creature predate those fictional tales considerably. Several sightings of the hoop snake have been alleged along the Minnesota- Wisconsin border in the St. Croix River valley, Wake County in North Carolina, and Kamloops, British Columbia.

According to folklore, the distinguishing feature of a hoop snake is that it can grasp its tail in its jaws and roll after its prey like a wheel, thus looking somewhat like the ouroboros of Greek mythology, or Tsuchinoko (a legendary fat snake that can roll like a wheel) in Japan. In one version of the myth, the snake straightens out at the last second, skewering its victim with its venomous tail. The only escape is to hide behind a tree, which receives the deadly blow instead and promptly dies from the poison.

The hoop snake is mentioned in a letter from 1784 (published in Tour in the U.S.A., Vol. I, p. 263-65. London):

Sightings are still occasionally reported, though the existence of the hoop snake has never been accepted by the scientific community. Naturalist Raymond Ditmars placed $10,000 in trust at a New York bank for the first person to provide evidence of a hoop snake. Some have suggested it is a distorted description of the sidewinder of the American Southwest, or of mud snakes, which will occasionally lie in a loose hoop shape. The hoop snake possibly is an embellishment of actual instances of snakes swallowing their own tails. Photographic examples of this are readily found on the Internet today.