Employees at an Australian reptile exhibit said they had never seen anything like it – a Stimson’s Python managed to get trapped in its own shedding skin, forming an endless, circular tunnel.

Caretakers at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre explained to confused visitors on Facebook that the snake had somehow managed to “shed completely within itself with its tail finishing inside its ‘sloughed (shedded) mouth’!”

Poor “Stimmy” traveled for hours, trapped inside its own skin, before finally breaking out through an exit hole in the side.

The snake emerged unharmed, if a little tired from the marathon escape, leaving a perfect steering wheel-shaped length of skin behind.