Not an expert, but I have heard that this isn’t a big deal for the snake. Scaleless rat snakes (which I believe the picture to be) have been found in the wild doing pretty alright. There is a benefit to be had from scales, but in captivity I imagine it is alright.

Pretty sure I heard it from a video by All Canadian Reptile Girl

It is… Adequate

Needs more jpeg

I just got the notification for this, sorry. There isn’t a real official term other than tail spikes, but iirc thagomizer has been used in literature, such as this paper describing a new specimen of a stegosaur from Portugal and its impacts on the taxonomy of stegosaurs

Paleontology nerd here. There isn’t an official term for the tail spikes, but thagomizer is pretty much an unoffcial official term.