Portal:Snakes

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The Snake Portal

Pope's pit viper (Trimeresurus popeiorum)

Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae).

Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses; exceptions include some large islands, such as Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and the islands of New Zealand, as well as many small islands of the Atlantic and central Pacific oceans. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans. Around thirty families are currently recognized, comprising about 520 genera and about 3,900 species. They range in size from the tiny, 10.4 cm-long (4.1 in) Barbados threadsnake to the reticulated python of 6.95 meters (22.8 ft) in length. The fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 12.8 meters (42 ft) long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago. The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene epoch (c. 66 to 56 Ma ago, after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event). The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus. (Full article...)

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Snakes, like other reptiles, have skin covered in scales. Snakes are entirely covered with scales or scutes of various shapes and sizes, known as snakeskin as a whole. A scale protects the body of the snake, aids it in locomotion, allows moisture to be retained within, alters the surface characteristics such as roughness to aid in camouflage, and in some cases even aids in prey capture (such as Acrochordus). The simple or complex colouration patterns (which help in camouflage and anti-predator display) are a property of the underlying skin, but the folded nature of scaled skin allows bright skin to be concealed between scales then revealed in order to startle predators.

Scales have been modified over time to serve other functions such as "eyelash" fringes, and protective covers for the eyes with the most distinctive modification being the rattle of the North American rattlesnakes. (Full article...)

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... that the tomb of the overseer of every cultivated place and every desert place threatens grave robbers with crocodiles and snakes?
... that the Japanese fire-bellied newt tends to show its belly to birds but wag its tail at snakes?
... that Isabel Cooper painted live snakes while holding them in her hand?
... that Missouri's annual Snake Saturday parade originally began in a hotel parking lot with only four floats?
... that salt marsh snakes drink only rainwater?
... that table tennis commentator Adam Bobrow's nickname "Snakeman" comes from a trick shot called "the snake"?

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... that the speed of the red whip snake enables it to feed largely on lizards?
... that the bite of the colourful Collett's snake can lead to rhabdomyolysis and kidney failure?
... that biologist Robert C. Stebbins published research on the sidewinder rattlesnake?
... that in 2007, three specimens of the Caspian whipsnake were found in Galați County, the first in Moldavia (eastern Romania) since 1937?
... that the Discovery Channel special Eaten Alive did not actually feature anyone being eaten alive?

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Quality Content

Featured snake-related articles - George Went Hensley - List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago
Good snake-related articles - Agkistrodon piscivorus - Bitis arietans - Bitis gabonica - Black mamba - Black-necked spitting cobra - Eastern green mamba - Forest cobra - Hydrophiinae - Many-banded krait - Nerodia clarkii - Russell's viper - Snake scales - Vipera berus - Western green mamba

General images

The following are images from various snake-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1An adult Barbados threadsnake, Leptotyphlops carlae, on an American quarter dollar (from Snake)
Image 2A common watersnake shedding its skin (from Snake)
Image 3The lateral view of a king cobra's skull showing fangs (from Venomous snake)
Image 4Tetrapodophis (from Snake)
Image 5Narcisse Snake Dens welcome sign (from Narcisse Snake Dens)
Image 6The reverse side of the throne of Pharaoh Tutankhamun with four golden uraeus cobra figures. Gold with lapis lazuli; Valley of the Kings, Thebes (1347–37 BCE). (from Snake)
Image 7Innocuous milk snakes are often mistaken for coral snakes whose venom is deadly to humans. (from Snake)
Image 8Approximate world distribution of snakes (from Snake)
Image 9Diagram illustrating differential somite size due to difference in somitogenesis clock oscillation (from Snake)
Image 10A neonate sidewinder rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes) sidewinding (from Snake)
Image 11Snake coiled on a stick in Oklahoma. It was brumating in a large pile of wood chips, found by this landscaper after he bulldozed the pile in late autumn 2018. (from Snake)
Image 12Medusa (1597) by the Italian artist Caravaggio (from Snake)
Image 13Vipera berus, one fang in glove with a small venom stain, the other still in place (from Snake)
Image 14Eupodophis descouensi (from Snake)
Image 15Dolichophis jugularis preying on a sheltopusik (from Snake)
Image 16Common Blind Snake (Ramphotyphlops braminus) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 17The Indian cobra is the most common subject of snake charmings. (from Snake)
Image 18The world's most venomous snake, based on LD₅₀, is the inland taipan of Australia. (from Venomous snake)
Image 19The garter snake has been studied for sexual selection. (from Snake)
Image 20Common Tree Snake (from Australian snake habitats)
Image 21Golden tree snake climbing a flower (from Snake)
Image 22Mouse embryo 12 day post fertilization side by side with corn snake embryo 2 days post ovo-positioning. (from Snake)
Image 23Most common symptoms of any kind of snake bite envenomation. Furthermore, there is vast variation in symptoms between bites from different types of snakes. (from Snake)
Image 24Eupodophis descouensi hind leg (from Snake)
Image 25Eupodophis descouensi (from Snake)
Image 26Rod of Asclepius, in which the snake, through ecdysis, symbolizes healing (from Snake)
Image 27Snake meat, in a Taipei restaurant (from Snake)
Image 28Close up of a red-sided garter snake
Image 29African egg-eating snake eating an egg (from Snake)
Image 30The skeletons of snakes are radically different from those of most other reptiles (as compared with the turtle here, for example), consisting almost entirely of an extended ribcage. (from Snake)
Image 31Wart snake (Acrochordus granulatus) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 32A red-sided garter snake (from Narcisse Snake Dens)
Image 33Crawling prints of a snake (from Snake)
Image 34The Binocellate Cobra(naja naja) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 35Australia-Oceania Köppen Map (from Australian snake habitats)
Image 36Snakes composing a bronze kerykeion from the mythical Longanus river in Sicily (from Snake)
Image 37Ballcourt marker from the Postclassic site of Mixco Viejo in Guatemala. This sculpture depicts Kukulkan, jaws agape, with the head of a human warrior emerging from his maw. (from Snake)
Image 38A line diagram from The Fauna of British India by G. A. Boulenger (1890), illustrating the terminology of shields on the head of a snake (from Snake)