Snakes

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Lawrence's Awesome Page of Snakes

Snakes are reptiles and are covered in scales. All snakes are carnivores and are found in all the continents except for Antarctica. They can be as short as 10 centimeters or as long as 7.6 meters. Since Snakes have such a narrow body, their organs are in front of one another instead of side by side. Most species of snakes are non-venomous but the ones that have venom use it mostly for killing prey instead of self-defense. Some snakes have enough venom to seriously injure or kill humans. There are 15 families and 2,900 species of snakes.

Diet

Snakes are all carnivorous eat small animals including: mice, small lizards, other snakes, and small mammals like deer or sheep, eggs, fish, birds and insects. Since snakes cannot chew on their food, they swallow it whole. The size of the body affects how much the snake can eat. Smaller Snakes eat smaller prey but as they gradually become larger, they could start eating larger animals like deer and antelope.

A Snakes jaw is very unique. The lower jaw is very flexible allowing the snake to swallow animals twice its size. The two jaws are not tightly attached and the have no teeth but they do have tiny bony protrusions on the inside edge of the spine.

Some Species of snakes kill their prey with venom, but other species kill their prey with constriction. When a snake constricts, it usually strikes at the prey and holds on to it. Then it coils itself around the prey a few times and suffocates rather than crushing it to death. Most constricting snakes are non-venomous.

When a snake starts digesting, it becomes dormant. Digestion is a very intense activity, especially the digestion of large prey. Since snakes are cold-blooded so the temperature matters and the ideal temperature for digestion is 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit. There is also so much metabolic energy in a snake’s digestion that it raises 1.2 degrees Celsius above the surrounding temperature or 34.16 degrees Fahrenheit. When a snake is disturbed during digestion, it will usually vomit so it can escape a possible threat. When a snake isn’t disturbed

Skin

A snake's skin is covered with scales. Many snakes many people think that a snake’s scale is slippery and wet, but it actually is smooth and dry. Snakes also molt or shed their skin. Older snakes shed once to twice a year, but Younger snakes could shed up to 4 times a year. Molting helps gets rid of the old skin and any mites or ticks with it.

Habitat

A snake’s habitat may vary. They live all over the world: deserts, rivers, rain forests, forests, in the sea and ocean, and even in some mountains.

Eyesight

The eyesight of snakes may vary to very keen eyesight to near blind, but is mostly used to track movement. Some snakes such as the Asian Vine Snake as binocular vision which allows them to focus on one point with both eyes.

Smell

Snakes use their sense of smell to track their prey. It smells using its forked tongue to collect particles in the air and then passing them into the Jacobson organ or the Vomeronasal organ for examination. The fork in the tongue gives the snake a sense of direction and taste. The Snake always moves its tongue so it can sense prey or predators in the area it's in.

Vibration

Snakes also use vibration to sense their surroundings. The lower part of the Snakes body that touches the ground is very sensitive to vibration. Snakes can use it to detect animals and vibration in the air.

Movement

Since snakes don’t have many limbs, they use different ways to move. Some are: Lateral Undulation and Side winding

When a Snake uses Lateral Undulation, the body flexes lift to right which looks like rear moving waves.

Snakes use Side winding when the environment doesn’t have rough ground for the snake to push against such as sand dunes. Side winding is a miniature form of Lateral Undulation. All the body segments are oriented in one direction remain in contact with the ground while the other body segments are lifted up resulting in a rolling motion that can move on slippery surfaces.

Venom

Venom is what snakes use to kill or disable its prey. It is modified saliva that is injected through the fangs.

The fangs of more advanced snakes like viperids elapids have hollow fangs so venom can be injected more effectively. Snake venom is mainly for prey, but is also used for self defense. Venom is often mixed with poison. Poison is inhaled or ingested, but venom is injected.

Snake venom is a complicated mixture of proteins and is stored in a gland at the back of the head. They can be a mix of neurotoxins that affect the nervous system, hemotoxins which affect the circulatory system and also cytotoxins and bungarotoxins that attack different parts of the body.

Scientific Classifaction