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, the Hawaiian archipelago, 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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The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin serpens, a crawling animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good and evil.

In some cultures, snakes were fertility symbols. For example, the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth (a Sky spirit) and Snake Girl (an Underworld spirit) and to renew the fertility of Nature. During the dance, live snakes were handled, and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. "The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, that the rain may fall on the growing crops." To the Hopi, snakes symbolized the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars—sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshiped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration. (Full article...)

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... that the manga series Reptilia was inspired in part by a story from Japanese folklore about a woman who is transformed into a snake, told to author Kazuo Umezu as a child?
... that Vanita Jagdeo Borade has been called the "Snake Woman" for having rescued more than 50,000 snakes?
... that Missouri's annual Snake Saturday parade originally began in a hotel parking lot with only four floats?
... that the Maloja Wind in Switzerland can produce a narrow and elongated low-lying cloud known as the "Maloja Snake"?
... that the Churah Valley kukri snake was discovered because of an Instagram post?
... that table tennis commentator Adam Bobrow's nickname "Snakeman" comes from a trick shot called "the snake"?

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... that Wilmer Tanner (pictured with a tiger trophy), born 1909, described at least fifteen new species or genera?
...that the Olive python, Australia's second largest snake, can eat prey as large as a wallaby?
... that one of the few cases of poisoning by the Montpellier snake occurred when someone stuck his finger into the snake's mouth?
... that twenty-six U.S. states have an official reptile?
... that the American minister George Went Hensley taught that Christians should eschew baseball and embrace venomous snakes?

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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 1Australia-Oceania Köppen Map (from Australian snake habitats)
Image 2Snake meat, in a Taipei restaurant (from Snake)
Image 3Wart snake (Acrochordus granulatus) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 4Diagram illustrating differential somite size due to difference in somitogenesis clock oscillation (from Snake)
Image 5Medusa (1597) by the Italian artist Caravaggio (from Snake)
Image 6Vipera berus, one fang in glove with a small venom stain, the other still in place (from Snake)
Image 7African egg-eating snake eating an egg (from Snake)
Image 8The world's most venomous snake, based on LD₅₀, is the inland taipan of Australia. (from Venomous snake)
Image 9A common watersnake shedding its skin (from Snake)
Image 10Ballcourt 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 11A 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)
Image 12The lateral view of a king cobra's skull showing fangs (from Venomous snake)
Image 13Dolichophis jugularis preying on a sheltopusik (from Snake)
Image 14Rod of Asclepius, in which the snake, through ecdysis, symbolizes healing (from Snake)
Image 15Narcisse Snake Dens welcome sign (from Narcisse Snake Dens)
Image 16Most 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 17Common Tree Snake (from Australian snake habitats)
Image 18The Binocellate Cobra(naja naja) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 19The Indian cobra is the most common subject of snake charmings. (from Snake)
Image 20The garter snake has been studied for sexual selection. (from Snake)
Image 21Tetrapodophis (from Snake)
Image 22Snake 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 23Close up of a red-sided garter snake
Image 24Mouse embryo 12 day post fertilization side by side with corn snake embryo 2 days post ovo-positioning. (from Snake)
Image 25Approximate world distribution of snakes (from Snake)
Image 26Golden tree snake climbing a flower (from Snake)
Image 27Snakes composing a bronze kerykeion from the mythical Longanus river in Sicily (from Snake)
Image 28Eupodophis descouensi hind leg (from Snake)
Image 29A red-sided garter snake (from Narcisse Snake Dens)
Image 30Crawling prints of a snake (from Snake)
Image 31The 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 32Eupodophis descouensi (from Snake)
Image 33An adult Barbados threadsnake, Leptotyphlops carlae, on an American quarter dollar (from Snake)
Image 34Common Blind Snake (Ramphotyphlops braminus) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 35Innocuous milk snakes are often mistaken for coral snakes whose venom is deadly to humans. (from Snake)
Image 36Eupodophis descouensi (from Snake)
Image 37A neonate sidewinder rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes) sidewinding (from Snake)
Image 38The 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)