Defensive Tail-curling and Head-mimicking Behavior in a Variable Coralsnake, Micrurus diastema (Squamata: Elapidae) in Cusuco National Park, Honduras

The Painted Coral Snake, Micrurus corallinus (Serpentes: Elapidae), does use defensive tail displays

“…Certainly, in coralsnakes (whose entire appearance is aposematic), the principal function of these displays would likely be the first option, whereas the occasional employment of "tail-striking" in the genus adds a further layer of "aggressive defense" by implying that the "false head" is capable of injecting venom (Allen 1940;Serafim and Duarte 2008). This is further reinforced by the presence in many species of a subcaudal color pattern that resembles the coloration of the head (Jowers et al 2019;Brown et al 2020) (Fig. 1).…”

Defensive behavior by a Villavicencio Coralsnake, Micrurus medemi Roze 1967 (Squamata: Elapidae), in Colombia

“…Self-mimicry has been reported in Micrurus diastema (T.W. Brown et al 2020), Micrurus frontalis, Micrurus lemniscatus, Erythrolamprus aesculapii, Simophis rhinostoma (Sazima and Abe 1991), and Xenodon dorbignyi (Tozzetti et al 2009).…”