So, in reality the spellcaster snake, pretending to be preparing for a performance, lightly taps or stamps on the basket with the snake, and the animal immediately reacts.
In addition, while performing music, the caster continuously moves his body, and the snake, constantly watching him, repeats his movements so that the person is always in front of his eyes. From the outside it looks like the snake is dancing, bewitched by the spellcaster!
Where do snakes get their venom from? According to scientists, there are now about two thousand four hundred different species of snakes in the world. Of these, only eight percent are poisonous and paralyze or kill their prey with poison. Many venomous snakes do not produce enough venom to be dangerous to humans.
All snakes produce a lot of saliva, which helps them swallow and digest their prey. Poisonous snakes produce a substance in one of their salivary glands that is poisonous to its victims. This substance is snake venom.
The venom of some snakes is so strong that it can kill an elephant. In others it is so weak that it can only kill a small lizard. No more than two hundred species of poisonous snakes can be considered dangerous to humans.
Of the poisonous snakes known today, cobras and snakes similar to them form one family, vipers another. In addition, some members of the largest family of snakes, the Coluberas, are also venomous.
Cobras and other representatives of this family have two poisonous teeth on the upper jaw, one on each side. These teeth have grooves, but in most cobras they are closed and form tubes that are empty inside. There is a muscle around the venom gland. When a snake bites, the muscle presses on the gland, squeezing venom into the teeth, which enters the victim's body through the grooves of the teeth.
There is also a so-called spitting cobra, which can shoot venom from its poisonous teeth. The cobra aims at the eyes of an animal that threatens it, such as an antelope or buffalo. The spit reaches its target at a distance of up to two meters and causes blindness almost instantly.
Typically, cobra venom acts on the victim's nervous system and paralyzes it. When the poison reaches the nerve centers that control breathing and heartbeat, the victim dies.
Vipers have very long poisonous teeth. Their hell mainly affects the blood cells and blood vessels of the victim. This can cause severe swelling and bleeding.
What do snakes eat? There are no “vegetarian” snakes. They are all predators and feed on different types of animals.
Snakes have very strong digestive juices, which serve a vital function as snakes swallow their food whole. They do not have teeth to tear apart prey, as, for example, representatives of the cat family do. Birds and turtles have beaks. And all that snakes have are needle-thin teeth, with which they catch their prey and send it into their mouths. But they can't chew it.
The most unusual thing about snakes is the structure of their jaws, which is associated with a peculiar way of feeding. The jaws are very loosely attached to the rest of the bones of the skull. There are teeth on the jaws, and most snakes also have two rows of teeth on the roof of their mouth. All these rows of teeth sit on bones driven by special muscles.
The snake eats by pulling one jaw down on the prey while the teeth of the other jaw hold it down so it doesn't escape. The snake then releases its teeth, moves the other jaw forward and plunges them in again.
This forces the food down the snake's throat.
Thanks to this jaw structure, the snake is able to swallow a surprisingly large animal. For example, the python eats large animals such as deer and leopard! Of course, smaller snakes eat smaller animals. Most feed on medium-sized creatures: frogs, mice, rats, birds and grasshoppers. Some small blind snakes feed on termites. And there are also those who eat other snakes!
Snakes are very picky about their food choices. The North American green snake, for example, eats spiders, fish, birds and caterpillars, but it does not eat lizards or mice. And water snakes eat fish and frogs, but do not touch insects and mice. The yellow-striped snake, found in North America, is more omnivorous. Its diet includes worms, fish, frogs, rodents and birds.
Snakes(lat. Serpentes) - a suborder of reptiles of the order Squamate.
All known snakes are predators. Among the various variety of snakes, there are harmless and poisonous representatives that are very dangerous for humans and animals. Currently, there are more than 3,000 species of snakes on Earth, grouped into 14 families. Venomous snakes make up about a quarter of known species.
Which snake is the deadliest?
The answer to this question depends on what is meant by the word “deadly.” Does it mean the snake that kills more people than other snakes, or does it mean the snake that has the most powerful venom?
Some scientists consider the king cobra to be the deadliest snake. They justify their opinion with the following reasons. Its poison is very dangerous. And most importantly, this snake always attacks without delay. There are cases where people died from king cobra bites within an hour. The king cobra can compete with the tiger snake that lives in Australia. Its venom is one of the most potent, but fortunately, the tiger snake has a limited amount of venom.
Another snake lives in India. It's called a krait, and 77 percent of people bitten by this snake die. Another Indian cobra, the spectacled cobra, has probably killed more people than any other snake, but in fact only 10 percent of victims die from its bite, provided that medical attention is provided in time.
By the way, the largest snake in the world is by no means the deadliest. We are talking about an anaconda that lives in South America. The length of this snake can reach nine meters. But since anacondas live in very inaccessible areas, it may well be that there are larger specimens that have not been encountered by researchers.
Do snakes lay eggs?
For most of us, all snakes are the same. We have heard that there are differences between them, but we have no idea how great they are.
One such difference is that different species of snakes reproduce differently. For example, rattlesnakes, copperheads, and water snakes do not lay eggs, but give birth to live young. Snakes are known that can give birth to up to 75 babies at a time.
Other snakes lay eggs. They usually do this in secluded areas, under rocks, under logs or in empty tree stumps. Snake eggs are somewhat different in shape from chicken eggs: they are smaller and longer. Although the eggs of large snakes may not be inferior in size to chicken eggs.
The shell of a snake egg is quite strong and resembles skin. The number of eggs in a clutch varies depending on the type of snake. The python probably lays the most eggs. The Indian python can lay up to 107 eggs at a time.
The eggs are usually aged in the sun or in the heat generated by decaying vegetation. Sometimes snakes guard eggs by coiling around them.
But who takes care of the growing offspring if the number of eggs in a clutch reaches 100? Nobody! All little snakes are able to take care of themselves from the moment they are born!
Does a snake have bones
Watching the movement of a snake, you are primarily surprised by two things. Firstly, how it moves: there are no legs visible, nothing pushes or pulls the snake’s body - and yet it moves! Well, and secondly, the snake’s body seems to flow along the ground, as if it were without bones!
However, the snake is simply filled with bones, that's a fact! Snakes have an articulated spine to which the ribs are attached. Some snakes can have up to 145 pairs of ribs attached to their flexible spine. The vertebrae are attached to each other by a sort of hinge joint, with each vertebra having its own pair of ribs attached, giving the vertebrae and ribs freedom of movement.
The tips of each pair of ribs, in turn, are connected by muscles to one of the plates (scales) on the snake's belly.
Snakes have bones in their heads and jaws. When eating, the snake is able to spread its jaws very wide because the bones of the mouth and throat are not rigidly fixed. In fact, most snakes swallow their prey without even killing it. They simply digest it alive.
So, as you can see, snakes have bones, although their slithery bodies appear to be completely devoid of any solid base.
Why do snakes have no legs?
The absence of legs in modern snakes does not mean that they never had limbs.
But how and when snakes “lost” their legs is not known to science.
Some scientists believe that the ancestors of the snake were some species of shrew lizards, which have survived to this day. All of these lizards have very short legs or no legs at all.
But, despite the fact that once the snake lost all its legs, they by no means lost the ability to move and get along very well without them. Convex plates located on the belly help the snake move.
There are four different modes of movement for snakes.
Lateral wave-like movement. The snake consistently describes wavy curves with its body, similar in shape to the letter S, and, pushing off the uneven ground with its body, slides forward.
Rectilinear movement. Small groups of plates on the belly push part of the snake's body forward, while the remaining plates are thrown back, creating a support for the body. After this, the plates that move forward hold the body while the plates of the back of the body are pulled towards them.
Spiral movement. Used for climbing trees. The snake wraps its tail around a tree trunk and, throwing up the front part of its body, hooks onto the tree at a certain height, after which it pulls up the lower part of its body.
Side move. Moving by this method, the snake throws the front part of its body to the side, after which it pulls in the back part and repeats the same operation.
Why does a snake need scales?
Snakes are reptiles, and like all reptiles, they have dry and scaly skin. Relatives of snakes include lizards, alligators, crocodiles, sea and land turtles.
Since there are more than 2,000 species of snakes in the world, it is not surprising that they live everywhere: on the ground, underground, in trees and in water, inhabiting almost all regions of our planet, with the exception of the polar regions and some islands.
As noted earlier, snakes do not have legs (although pythons and boas retain vestiges of their hind legs), and they are aided in movement by plates (or scales) located on their bellies. They are quite wide, and the snake moves them in such a way that the edge of the plate is pushed off from some unevenness on the surface of the earth. Pushing off with several plates at the same time, the snake moves forward.
All snakes, both old and young, molt periodically. Even the film covering the eyes gives way to a new one. During the molting process, the snake's skin turns inside out. The snake gets rid of it by rubbing against any unevenness or stones. Snakes shed several times a year.
Can you really hypnotize a snake?
We have all seen snake charmers playing some musical instrument in front of the snake, which, raised above the ground, seems to be dancing to their music. What is really happening at this moment?
The truth is that the snake charmer is not hypnotizing them at all! He is simply putting on a show, trying to convince the audience that he is the one making the snake “dance.” To begin with, it should be noted that snakes are deaf and, therefore, do not hear the music played by the caster! But snakes very sensitively pick up the slightest vibrations of the surface of the earth next to them, and having caught these vibrations, they immediately react.
So, in reality, the snake charmer, pretending to be preparing for a performance, lightly taps or stamps on the basket with the snake, and the animal immediately reacts.
In addition, while performing music, the caster continuously moves his body, and the snake, constantly watching him, repeats his movements so that the person is always in front of his eyes. From the outside it looks like the snake is dancing, bewitched by the spellcaster!
Where do snakes get their venom from?
According to scientists, there are now about two thousand four hundred different species of snakes in the world. Of these, only eight percent are poisonous and paralyze or kill their prey with poison. Many venomous snakes do not produce enough venom to be dangerous to humans.
All snakes produce a lot of saliva, which helps them swallow and digest their prey. Poisonous snakes produce a substance in one of their salivary glands that is poisonous to its victims. This substance is snake venom.
The venom of some snakes is so strong that it can kill an elephant. In others it is so weak that it can only kill a small lizard. No more than two hundred species of poisonous snakes can be considered dangerous to humans.
Of the poisonous snakes now known, cobras and snakes similar to them form one family, vipers another. In addition, some members of the largest family of snakes, the Coluberas, are also venomous.
Cobras and other representatives of this family have two poisonous teeth on the upper jaw, one on each side. These teeth have grooves, but in most cobras they are closed and form tubes that are empty inside. There is a muscle around the venom gland. When a snake bites, the muscle presses on the gland, squeezing venom into the teeth, which enters the victim's body through the grooves of the teeth.
There is also a so-called spitting cobra, which can shoot venom from its poisonous teeth. The cobra aims at the eyes of an animal that threatens it, such as an antelope or buffalo. The spit reaches its target at a distance of up to two meters and causes blindness almost instantly.
Typically, cobra venom acts on the victim's nervous system and paralyzes it. When the poison reaches the nerve centers that control breathing and heartbeat, the victim dies.
Vipers have very long poisonous teeth. Their hell mainly affects the blood cells and blood vessels of the victim. This can cause severe swelling and bleeding.
What do snakes eat?
All snakes are predators and feed on different types of animals.
Snakes have very strong digestive juices, which serve a vital function as snakes swallow their food whole. They do not have teeth to tear apart prey, as, for example, representatives of the cat family do. Birds and turtles have beaks. And all that snakes have are needle-thin teeth, with which they catch their prey and send it into their mouths. But they can't chew it.
The most unusual thing about snakes is the structure of their jaws, which is associated with a peculiar way of feeding. The jaws are very loosely attached to the rest of the bones of the skull. There are teeth on the jaws, and most snakes also have two rows of teeth on the roof of their mouth. All these rows of teeth sit on bones driven by special muscles.
The snake eats by pulling one jaw down on the prey while the teeth of the other jaw hold it down so it doesn't escape. The snake then releases its teeth, moves the other jaw forward and plunges them in again.
This forces the food down the snake's throat.
Thanks to this jaw structure, the snake is able to swallow a surprisingly large animal. For example, the python eats large animals such as deer and leopard. Of course, smaller snakes eat smaller animals. Most feed on medium-sized creatures: frogs, mice, rats, birds and grasshoppers. Some small blind snakes feed on termites. And there are those who eat other snakes.
Snakes are very picky about their food choices. The North American green snake, for example, eats spiders, fish, birds and caterpillars, but it does not eat lizards or mice. And water snakes eat fish and frogs, but do not touch insects and mice. The yellow-striped snake, found in North America, is more omnivorous. Its diet includes worms, fish, frogs, rodents and birds.
We have already mentioned several times about poisonous teeth and the venom of poisonous snakes. Now let’s take a closer look at what this weapon of a poisonous snake is and how it works.
The venom apparatus of snakes consists of a pair of venomous glands, where poison is produced and stored from poisonous teeth, located, as we have already mentioned, in different snakes differently, in front or behind the remaining teeth, but always in the upper jaw.
The poisonous glands of snakes are located under the eyes and behind them and are modified salivary glands; the poison that is produced in them, accordingly, is nothing more than altered saliva. This saliva is mildly poisonous in non-dangerous or non-venomous snakes, such as snakes, is more poisonous in snakes with poisonous teeth sitting behind the other teeth (such as a cat snake), and, finally, is a very strong poison in truly poisonous snakes. . From the poisonous glands there are ducts for the drainage of poison to the poisonous teeth; these ducts sometimes have extensions to store poison.
The poisonous teeth are much larger than the others (in the viper they can reach up to 1.5 cm in length), hooked backwards, with very sharp thin ends in the form of a needle. They can be tubular (in vipers and copperheads) or grooved (in cobras, cat snakes, etc.). Tubular poisonous teeth are pierced inside with a channel for the drainage of poison; in grooved teeth, a longitudinal groove on the front side of the tooth serves for this purpose. The channel for the drainage of poison in tubular teeth opens near the end of the tooth, also on its front side.
This feature of poisonous teeth has its own meaning. When a snake has sunk its poisonous teeth into the body of an animal, it naturally tries to break free for the first moment and moves forward from the snake; at the same time, the hook-shaped poisonous teeth push back the tissues into which they are stuck, and in front of them there is a small space into which the poison can freely pour out. If the opening of the channel for the poison or the groove for its drainage were on the back side of the tooth, the first movement of the victim, on the contrary, would not make it easier, but would make it more difficult for the poison to escape.
As already mentioned, the poisonous teeth of vipers (and copperheads) are attached movably, so that at rest they are folded with their apex backwards; this is achieved by the mobility of the articulation of the maxillary bones, on which they sit, with the snake’s skull. Folded in this way, the poisonous teeth are covered with folds of the oral mucosa.
Since poisonous teeth are hard and fragile, like glass, and break easily, and their importance for poisonous snakes is enormous, several replacement teeth always grow to replace the existing pair of them, of which the largest comes into operation soon after the breaking of the active poisonous tooth. Therefore, magicians who show poisonous snakes in bazaars (and there are still many of them in Eastern countries) break off the teeth of their snakes so that they can be safely handled more than once, but monitor the change of poisonous teeth and break them off from time to time; or you have to immediately break out pieces of their maxillary bones with all the poisonous teeth and their replacements so that the poisonous teeth have nowhere else to appear; however, some “snake charmers” work with snakes that have poisonous teeth.
When attacking, a poisonous snake plunges its poisonous teeth into the body of the bitten animal and, by pressing the anterior temporal muscle on the poisonous gland, injects poison into the wounds, which expand with the movements of the victim herself, trying to escape. If the killed viper has not used up its poison, then when its head is squeezed behind and slightly below the eyes, drops of poison appear from the poisonous teeth.
From the bite marks it is easy to determine immediately, before the onset of painful phenomena, which snake bit, poisonous or harmless. The bite mark of a non-dangerous or non-venomous snake consists of four long rows of puncture marks from small teeth; a viper bite leaves a mark in the form of two deep wounds from poisonous teeth and two rows of injections from small teeth, and deep wounds are located on the sides of the anterior end of the rows of small injections.
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In the temporal part of the snake's head there are glands that produce poison. From these glands, the poison flows through channels into two tubular teeth located in the upper jaw. In some snakes, the length of these teeth reaches 4-5 centimeters. When such a snake is in a calm state, its teeth are pressed to the roof of the mouth like a jackknife. At the moment of a bite, the teeth straighten and move forward. At the same time, the snake uses them to deliver a lightning strike. The cobra's teeth are located deep in the mouth and reach a length of only 6-7 millimeters. To strike the victim, the cobra opens its mouth wide, grabs the prey and chews it. If a snake accidentally breaks its poisonous teeth, new ones grow in their place.
All animals are susceptible to snake bites in one way or another. But, for example, hedgehogs are able to tolerate very significant doses of snake venom without any consequences. Nature has endowed pigs with similar enviable qualities, which are protected from snake bites by a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, which is very poor in blood vessels and therefore prevents the spread of poison.
(!) First aid for a poisonous snake bite
The victim should be put to bed, the bitten arm or leg should be kept immobile by splinting it, and plenty of warm fluids should be given. Such methods of “treatment” as constrictions, cauterization, and drinking alcohol are harmful and dangerous.