Snakes

Snakes

  Snakes are carnivorous reptiles with bodies that are long and flexible with overlapping scales. Most snakes have special belly scales to move or climb with. They shed the outer layer of skin from head to tail in one piece at least once year. They do not have limbs, external ears, or eyelids. Snakes are cold blood (ectothermic) animals. They control their body temperature by basking in the sun or retreating to cool shaded places. This allows snakes to live for months without eating. Snakes that live in habitats with cold winters will hibernate underground until spring. They range in size from a few inches in length to the anacondas and pythons that can reach more than 25 feet.

  They use their forked tongue that flickers out of their mouth to smell with and to track their prey. Snakes as a whole will consume every type of prey from small insects to pigs and deer. But different species will hunt after specific types of animals. Rattle snakes eat mostly rodents for example. Most snakes will eat their prey alive. Venomous snakes will kill their dangerous prey before they can safely eat it. By using their fangs to puncture deep into the animal’s body it then injects lethal venom. Constrictor snakes like the boas and pythons kill in a different way. They will coil their long strong bodies around their prey then crush it slowly to death.

  Pit vipers and pythons can see heat from warm bodied prey like mice and birds using infrared-sensitive receptors on their nose. Snakes have flexible heads and their lower jaw can separate from their head. This allow them to swallow very large prey whole. Their backwards facing teeth will hold their prey as they slowly swallow it by stretching their mouth around the animal.

  The majority snakes live in the warm tropics however they can be found in many other different habitats. Prairies, wetlands, forests, and deserts have many species of snakes. They can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Many islands such as Iceland or New Zealand are free of snakes. Sea snakes are snakes that have evolved to live in warm tropical waters close to shore from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. They have broad flat tail and move through the water like eels.

  Most snakes are harmless to man. Even the large venomous snakes that are dangerous enough to kill a human like the cobras and rattle snakes are still beneficial. They are natural predators of rodents and they keep their numbers in check.