About such mysterious and mysterious creatures as snakes, people from different parts of the world have created many myths and legends. But if for some peoples the snake is an object of worship and deification, symbolizing strength, wisdom, renewal, then others experience fear of these hissing and crawling animals. This article will tell you unusual and interesting facts about snakes.
Giants of the serpentine world
Today on our planet there are more than 3,000 species of snakes, and about 1,000 of them are poisonous. The sizes of these animals can be very diverse. So, in Indonesia in the west of the island of Sumatra , the largest python to date has been caught, whose length is almost 15 meters.
Following the boa constrictor is an anaconda with a length of 5 to 6 meters, although there are instances of more than 9 meters. For centuries, South Americans have frightened children and composed legends about snakes covered in staggered brown spots and living in lakes and quiet river harbors. Previously, the anaconda was also called a water boa, which in fact does not contradict the truth: this snake really belongs to the subfamily of boas, and it really loves water.
The following interesting facts about snakes concern poisonous species, the longest among them is the king cobra, whose body length can reach 6 meters.
But on the territory of the former USSR, the largest representative of reptiles is considered to be a viper from a family of vipers. It can grow up to two meters long and up to 3 kg in weight.
A snake or a worm?
The smallest snake - a narrow-minded two-ruled (Leptotyphlops bilineata) - lives on islands of the Caribbean, such as Martinique, Santa Lucia, Barbados, and rarely exceeds 10 cm in length. Another miniature representative of reptiles is the Brahmin blind (Typhlops braminus), or potted snake belongs to the family of blind snakes. Interesting facts about the snakes of this family are that they are actually blind, since their eyes are almost undeveloped and covered with skin. In addition, blind people prefer to live in ordinary flower pots, exposed in the warm time to the street or to the garden. A snake lives in South Asia, on the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, and together with flower pots it has moved to the Hawaiian Islands, Madagascar and Mexico.
Unusual facts about snake skeletons
Modern scientists know almost everything about snakes, but they never cease to be amazed at the unique structure of their skeleton. Unlike all other animals, reptiles have no limbs. Only in the largest specimens of boas can one find rudimentary remains of the pelvic bones and hind limbs. The torso joins directly to the skull, while there is no difference, except the size, between the vertebrae of all five sections. The total vertebrae can be from 200 to 400. The number of ribs in snakes can reach 200, and they are connected to the vertebrae of the skeleton by a system of ligaments and elastic muscles.
Anatomy Features
No less interesting facts about snakes are clarified when we begin to study the structure of their internal organs. So, the kidneys of these reptiles are not located on the right and left, but as if one after the other - in front and behind. But the snake heart can move quite far relative to its original position, which contributes to the normal passage of swallowed food through the intestines.
Another, rather unexpected, truth about snakes: they are deaf in our understanding of this word, since the eardrum and middle ear are completely atrophied. Touching the belly with the ground, these reptiles pick up the body with a variety of vibrations and vibrations, including sound.
Instead of moving snakes, the eyelids are fused together and transparent as hard lenses. They protect the snake's eyes from various injuries during movement or hunting.
When attacking, the snake's mouth can open 180 0 . The upper jaw of these reptiles is equipped with two rows, and the lower - with one row of teeth. Throughout life, all of them, including fangs, change. The longest teeth are famous for the African Gabon viper: they can grow up to 3 cm in it.
How do they hunt?
Of course, to tell everything about snakes in the framework of one article will not work, but here we will dwell on the methods of their hunting separately.
Hunting methods depend on the species the reptile belongs to. Poisonous individuals prefer to wait for their prey in an ambush and, after delivering an accurate and quick blow, kill the victim. If the snake missed, then it will not pursue the alleged lunch for long - 1-3 meters, after which it will again stand still waiting. But vipers, for all their toxicity, are far from always ambushed: these snakes are able to cover considerable distances in search of prey. Sand moths and pallas, the muzzle can make their way into the rodent burrows and eat their prey right there, although they also use ambush hunting.
Those who do not have poison simply keep their captured victims and swallow them or use the strangulation technique. The snakes swallow the prey alive, but the pythons and boas kill the victim, wrapping themselves around her body and gradually increasing the compressive strength of the rings until she dies from suffocation. According to the hunting time, snakes are divided into:
Sea snakes
These reptiles live mainly in the tropical warm waters of the western Pacific. Between Borneo and Singapore, 27 species of various sea snakes live. In the Australian coastal waters about 21, and in the Great Barrier Reef - 14 species of these marine reptiles. In total, there are about 70 species of marine reptiles.
The most interesting thing about snakes that live in the sea is that, with the exception of the tortoiseshell, they are all poisonous and can cause serious harm to human health. Turtle sea snakes are not dangerous for people because they feed on fish roe. Under the influence of such a diet, their teeth were transformed into a single plate, thanks to which they become like turtles. They cannot produce poison, and they also don’t have teeth for injecting it.