diff --git a/crates/stdlib/src/_zoneinfo.rs b/crates/stdlib/src/_zoneinfo.rs
index 9ab94cbefcd..aea7db10b4a 100644
--- a/crates/stdlib/src/_zoneinfo.rs
+++ b/crates/stdlib/src/_zoneinfo.rs
@@ -552,6 +552,9 @@ mod _zoneinfo {
                 parser.bump();
             }
             let end = parser.i;
+            if end == start {
+                return None;
+            }
             parser.bump();
             return Some(String::from_utf8_lossy(&parser.bytes[start..end]).into_owned());
         }
diff --git a/extra_tests/snippets/stdlib_zoneinfo.py b/extra_tests/snippets/stdlib_zoneinfo.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..c8004585f81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra_tests/snippets/stdlib_zoneinfo.py
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+import io
+import struct
+from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
+
+from testutils import assert_raises
+
+# Minimal TZif v3 data with no transitions and a POSIX rule in the footer.
+header = (b"TZif3" + b"\0" * 15 + struct.pack(">6l", 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)) * 2
+
+
+def zone_from_rule(rule):
+    return ZoneInfo.from_file(io.BytesIO(header + b"\n" + rule + b"\n"))
+
+
+for rule in (b"<>5", b"AAA4<>,M3.2.0/2,M11.1.0/3"):
+    assert_raises(ValueError, zone_from_rule, rule)
+
+# Quoting still permits nonempty numeric abbreviations.
+assert zone_from_rule(b"<+05>-5").tzname(None) == "+05"