109 Fun Facts About Snake

Snakes are found on every continent except which one?

Antarctica is the only continent with no snakes; the common adder reaches north of the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia, but nothing in the order lives on the polar south.

What does a snake do with its forked tongue?

Collect scent particles: that is the job of the forked tongue, which flicks out, picks up chemical traces from air or ground, and delivers them to the vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth.

The vomeronasal organ in the roof of a snake's mouth is commonly known by which anatomist's name?

Jacobson's organ is the common name, after the Danish anatomist Ludwig Jacobson, who described it in 1813, although Frederik Ruysch had noted it a century earlier.

Instead of movable eyelids, what covers a snake's eyes?

A transparent scale called the brille or spectacle covers each eye; it is shed with the rest of the skin, which is why a snake's eyes turn cloudy before a molt.

How does a snake shed its skin?

In one complete piece, ideally: the old layer peels back from the snout and comes off like a sock turned inside out, and a healthy adult may shed several times a year.

Roughly how many species of snakes are there?

About 3,900 snake species were recognized by the early 2020s, with dozens more described each year; the great majority are non-venomous.

Which snake is the longest venomous snake in the world, with a record length of 5.85 metres?

King cobra is the longest venomous snake, usually 3 to 4 metres with a record of 5.85 metres; it ranges across South and Southeast Asia.

The world's longest venomous snake is the only one known to do what with its eggs?

Build an above-ground nest is this snake's unique habit: the female rakes leaf litter into a mound, lays her clutch inside and guards it through incubation, unlike most snakes, which abandon theirs.

The black mamba's body is olive or grey, so which part gives it its name?

The inside of its mouth is inky black, and the snake gapes to show it as a threat display; it is also Africa's longest venomous snake.

Which shy Australian snake is considered the most venomous in the world by the LD50 test in mice?

Inland taipan venom is the most toxic of any snake on the mouse LD50 scale; a single bite is said to hold enough to kill a hundred adults, yet the snake is shy and rarely met.

What is the longest snake species alive today?

Reticulated python is the longest living species, regularly topping 6 metres; a captive specimen in Kansas City named Medusa was measured at 7.67 metres in 2011 for the Guinness record.

Which South American snake is the heaviest in the world?

Green anaconda is the heaviest snake, with the largest verified female weighing nearly 100 kg; females average around 4.6 metres against roughly 3 for males.

The Barbados threadsnake, one of the world's smallest snakes, was compared by its discoverer to the width of what?

A spaghetti noodle is what herpetologist Blair Hedges compared it to when he described the species in 2008; adults average about 10 cm, and the name honours his wife, Carla.

In which country's coal mine were the fossils of the giant snake Titanoboa discovered?

Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine, in the north of the country, yielded the Titanoboa fossils; the snake lived about 60 million years ago and is estimated at up to 12.8 metres long.

Which of these island nations has no native land snakes?

New Zealand has no native land snakes and bans importing them, even for zoos; its native reptiles are lizards and the tuatara.

What is the scientific verdict on the legend that St Patrick banished every serpent from the island?

It never had any after the Ice Age: snakes could not recolonize the island before rising seas cut its land bridge to Britain, and the third-century Roman writer Solinus already remarked on its lack of snakes, long before Patrick.

Brazil's Ilha da Queimada Grande is closed to the public because it is home to thousands of what?

Golden lancehead vipers, a critically endangered pit viper found nowhere else, crowd the island and feed mainly on migratory birds; only the Navy and vetted researchers may land.

The rattle on a rattlesnake's tail is made of what?

Hollow keratin segments, loosely interlocked, make up the rattle; a new segment is added each time the snake sheds, and the pieces click against each other when the tail vibrates.

Rattlesnakes are native only to which part of the world?

The Americas are the rattlesnake's only native range, from southern Canada to central Argentina; they cause most of the venomous snakebites in the United States.

What does the small pit in front of each eye on pit vipers such as rattlesnakes sense?

Infrared heat is what the loreal pits detect, letting the snake locate warm-blooded prey in total darkness and strike accurately at it.

Which body part does a snake rest on the ground to pick up vibrations in stereo?

Their lower jaw, resting on the ground, carries vibrations to the inner ear; the two halves of the jaw move independently, so the snake can tell which side a vibration comes from.

Snake venom is a modified form of what?

Saliva is what venom evolved from: the venom glands are modified salivary glands sitting behind and below each eye, and the toxins are proteins secreted into the bite.

Albert Calmette's 1890s antivenom, the first sold commercially, was produced by immunising which animals?

Horses were the animals Calmette injected with gradually increasing doses of cobra venom at the Pasteur Institute, then bled to harvest the antibody-rich serum.

Which snake family includes the cobras, mambas and coral snakes?

Elapidae is the family of venomous snakes with short, fixed front fangs; besides cobras, mambas and coral snakes it includes the kraits.

In Greek myth, which hero beheaded Medusa, the Gorgon with snakes for hair?

Perseus beheaded Medusa using a mirrored shield to avoid her gaze, then used the head as a weapon before giving it to Athena for her aegis.

What is the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail called?

Ouroboros, Greek for 'tail-devourer', is the name; among its earliest appearances is a gilded shrine from Tutankhamun's tomb, and alchemists later adopted it as a symbol of eternal cycles.

The Rod of Asclepius, the symbol of medicine, shows how many snakes wrapped around a staff?

One snake coils around the Rod of Asclepius; the two-snake, winged caduceus belongs to Hermes and is often confused with it, especially in the United States.

The rearing cobra worn on the crowns of Egyptian pharaohs is called what?

Uraeus is the name of the rearing cobra, an emblem of the goddess Wadjet of Lower Egypt; paired with Nekhbet's vulture it proclaimed the pharaoh's rule over both Lower and Upper Egypt.

In Norse myth, the world-encircling serpent that bites its own tail is which god's child?

Loki fathered the Midgard Serpent, Jörmungandr, with the giantess Angrboða; its siblings are the wolf Fenrir and Hel, and its releasing its tail heralds Ragnarök.

The board game Snakes and Ladders originated in which country as a lesson about virtue and vice?

India is where the game began as Moksha Patam, with ladders for virtues and snakes for vices; Milton Bradley's American version, Chutes and Ladders, appeared in 1943.

What is a 'dancing' cobra in a snake charmer's basket really responding to?

The movement of the instrument is what the cobra follows, swaying to track the pungi as a perceived threat; snakes cannot hear airborne music well enough to dance to it.

The Snake genre exploded after a version was preloaded on which company's mobile phones in 1998?

Nokia preloaded Snake on the 6110 in 1998, programmed by Taneli Armanto, and it reached hundreds of millions of handsets; the genre itself began with the 1976 arcade game Blockade.

Kaa, the hypnotic snake in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, is what kind of snake?

Indian python is Kaa's species: Kipling introduces him as Kaa the Rock Python, a wise ally of Mowgli more than a hundred years old, and it was Disney that made him a villain.

Which actor starred in Snakes on a Plane (2006)?

Samuel L. Jackson played FBI agent Neville Flynn; the film became an internet phenomenon before release, and New Line added five days of reshoots to work in fan feedback, including his famous line.

Roughly how many snakes were supplied for Raiders of the Lost Ark's Well of Souls scene?

Some 6,000 to 10,000 snakes, depending on who is counting, filled the set, many of them harmless grass snakes and legless slow-worms; the cobras were kept behind a sheet of glass.

The Roman poet Horace and later tradition say Cleopatra died from the bite of what kind of snake?

An Egyptian cobra, the snake the ancients called the asp, is the traditional culprit; Plutarch reports only two faint puncture marks on her arm, and some historians suspect poison instead.

The Burmese python has become a notorious invasive species in which US state?

Florida's Everglades hold tens of thousands of Burmese pythons descended from escaped and released pets; a 5.79-metre specimen caught in Big Cypress National Preserve in 2023 set the state record.

The 'king' in kingsnake refers to what habit, one it shares with a much larger Asian namesake?

Eating other snakes is the habit: kingsnakes are non-venomous but resist pit-viper venom and will hunt rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths, just as their Asian namesake does.

The boa constrictor is unusual among animals for what reason?

Its everyday name is its scientific name: the species is Boa constrictor in both casual and formal usage, a rarity among animals; keepers even say BCC, for Boa constrictor constrictor, to mark the nominate subspecies.

Python regius, the royal python of West Africa, gets its common English name from what behaviour?

Curling into a ball when frightened, with its head tucked in the middle of the coil, earned it the name ball python; the species is a staple of the pet trade.

North American hognose snakes are famous for what defensive trick?

Playing dead is the hognose's signature act: after hooding and hissing fails, it rolls onto its back, lets its tongue hang out and releases a foul musk to sell the performance.

Spitting cobras aim their venom at what part of an attacker?

The eyes and face are the target: studies found spitting cobras hit the eyes with around 90 percent accuracy, and the venom, harmless on intact skin, can blind if it reaches the cornea.

Snakes of the genus Chrysopelea in Southeast Asia are known for what ability?

Gliding between trees is the trick: the snake launches from a branch, flattens its body by flaring its ribs into an aerofoil, and undulates in mid-air, which is why the group is called flying snakes.

African snakes of the genus Dasypeltis have adapted to eat only what?

Eggs, and nothing else, make up the diet: the egg-eating snakes swallow birds' eggs whole, crack them with bony projections of the spine, and regurgitate the shell.

The Afrikaans name of the boomslang, a rear-fanged African species, translates as what?

Tree snake is the literal meaning, from Afrikaans boom (tree) and slang (snake); the herpetologist Karl Schmidt died in 1957 after a bite from a juvenile he assumed could not deliver a fatal dose.

The Snake is which animal in the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac?

Sixth is the Snake's place, after the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit and Dragon; the same twelve animals also mark two-hour periods of the day, the Snake's being 9 to 11 in the morning.

Which locomotion, used by desert vipers, lifts sections of the body clear of loose sand?

Sidewinding throws the body forward in loops so that only two short sections touch the ground at a time; the tracks are parallel J-shaped marks, and some Southeast Asian water snakes use it on tidal mudflats.

What are the tiny hind-limb remnants retained by pythons and boas called?

Anal spurs, also called pelvic spurs, are the clawed vestiges of hind limbs on either side of the vent; males use them to stroke and grip the female during courtship.

The World Health Organization estimates roughly how many people are bitten by snakes each year?

Between 4.5 and 5.4 million snakebites a year is the WHO estimate, causing 81,000 to 138,000 deaths; the agency listed snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease in 2017.

The Sanskrit 'nāga', for the semi-divine serpents of Hindu and Buddhist lore, most often means which snake?

The Indian cobra is what nāga usually denotes, and the genus name Naja derives from it; nāgas are typically depicted with a halo of cobra hoods, and the word can also mean elephant.

Which king destroyed the bronze serpent Moses had raised because people were worshipping it?

Hezekiah, king of Judah, smashed the serpent, by then called Nehushtan, because the Israelites had been burning incense to it; the act is recorded in 2 Kings 18:4.

The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes are found in which ancient Egyptian document?

The Brooklyn Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text of about 450 BC, catalogues some three dozen snakes and the treatment of their bites; it is held by the Brooklyn Museum.

Tetrapodophis, a 113-million-year-old fossil hailed in 2015 as a four-legged snake, was found in which country?

Brazil's Crato Formation yielded the specimen, though it surfaced in a German museum collection with no export record; a 2021 study reassigned it to the dolichosaurs, a group of extinct marine lizards.

Besides pit vipers, which group includes snakes with heat-sensing pits along the lips?

Pythons and boas carry rows of labial pits along the lips in many species, whereas pit vipers have a single loreal pit between the eye and nostril on each side.

Snakes have been found as high as 16,000 feet in which mountain range?

The Himalayas hold the altitude record: the Himalayan pit viper, Gloydius himalayanus, has been found at about 16,000 feet (4,900 metres), higher than any other snake.

Copperheads and cottonmouths can switch from sexual reproduction to which asexual mode?

Parthenogenesis, in which embryos develop from an unfertilised egg, has been documented in wild-caught copperheads and cottonmouths; a captive Colombian rainbow boa did it too, producing all-female WW offspring.

Which mode of snake locomotion is the slowest and the only one needing no sideways bending?

Rectilinear locomotion moves the snake forward in a straight line by lifting and pulling sections of belly scales in waves; heavy-bodied vipers and pythons use it to creep up on prey.

An unusual population of Oregon garter snakes is effectively poisonous thanks to toxins from eating what?

Newts, specifically the rough-skinned newt, carry tetrodotoxin, and garter snakes that eat them store it in the liver and become toxic to predators; the Asian genus Rhabdophis does something similar with toad toxins.

How do boa constrictors and green anacondas, unusually for reptiles, nourish their developing young?

Through a placenta, plus a yolk sac: boas and anacondas are fully viviparous, giving birth to live young, whereas pythons and most other snakes are oviparous.

Which country's flag shows a golden eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus while devouring a snake?

Mexico's emblem recalls the legend that the Aztecs were to found their city, Tenochtitlan, on the spot where they saw that eagle.

In The Little Prince, grown-ups mistake the narrator's drawing of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant for what?

A hat is all the adults ever see, so the boy makes a second drawing that shows the elephant inside the snake.

Boa constrictors kill prey not by suffocation, researchers found, but chiefly by cutting off what?

Blood flow halts under the squeeze, starving the heart and brain of oxygen, so prey passes out within seconds.

Which pop star danced with a live albino python draped over her shoulders at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards?

Britney Spears was performing I'm a Slave 4 U, a routine that used a host of other live animals as well.

Which ancient general won a sea battle by hurling clay pots of venomous snakes onto enemy ships?

Hannibal was by then an exile commanding the fleet of King Prusias of Bithynia against Eumenes II of Pergamon.

August Kekulé said a daydream of a snake seizing its own tail revealed the ring structure of which molecule?

Benzene's six carbon atoms join in a closed loop, a structure the German chemist published in 1865 and later credited to that vision.

Which Founding Father published the 1754 cartoon Join, or Die, showing the colonies as a snake cut into pieces?

Benjamin Franklin ran it in his Pennsylvania Gazette, playing on a superstition that a severed snake revives if its pieces are rejoined before sunset.

A cobra spreads its famous hood by lifting and extending which long, flexible bones of the neck?

The ribs of the neck swing outward and stretch the loose skin over them, while the snake rears up the front third of its body.

The slow worm, a legless garden animal of Europe often mistaken for a snake, is actually what?

A lizard without legs, it can blink its movable eyelids, which no snake can do, and sever its own tail when a predator grabs hold.

In Rudyard Kipling's story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, which small mammal defends a family's garden against two cobras?

A mongoose named for his chattering call, Rikki is half drowned by a storm and rescued by the family he goes on to protect.

Most snakes get by with one working example of which organ, the left one being tiny or absent?

The left lung shrank because a tubular body has room only for long, thin organs, which is also why the kidneys sit one in front of the other.

What is the scientific term for the periodic shedding of a snake's skin, also called sloughing?

Ecdysis announces itself in advance: just before a shed the skin dulls to grey and the eyes turn silvery.

What is the term for the winter dormancy of snakes and other reptiles, which stay awake but inactive?

Brumation is not true sleep, and snakes may pass it alone in burrows and rock piles or clumped together in large numbers.

Besides movable eyelids, which feature of most lizards do snakes lack on the sides of the head?

Ear openings are missing, yet snakes are not deaf: experiments show they react to low-pitched airborne sound as well as to vibration in the ground.

Which airway structure can a snake push out the side of its mouth to keep breathing while swallowing large prey?

The glottis sits just behind the tongue, and a hiss is simply air forced through it while it is partly closed.

The harmless scarlet kingsnake copies the bands of a venomous coral snake, an example of which kind of mimicry?

Batesian mimicry is a harmless animal's bluff, and tests show predators fall for the colour proportions even when the order of the rings is wrong.

Which family, home to garter snakes, rat snakes and kingsnakes, is the largest of all snake families?

Colubridae spans about 250 genera, and while most members are harmless to people, the venomous ones must chew on prey to work their venom in.

The tiny Brahminy blind snake has spread around the world mainly by stowing away in what?

Potted plants moved by the nursery trade carried it so far that it earned the nickname flowerpot snake.

Iran's spider-tailed horned viper waves a tail tip shaped like a spider to lure which prey within striking range?

Birds that eat insects swoop on the fake spider; the species was formally described only in 2006, after a 1968 specimen had been filed under a relative's name.

Which African bird of prey hunts on foot and kills snakes by stomping on them?

The secretarybird even carries the habit in its scientific name: serpentarius comes from the Latin for snake.

Which mammal, a known predator of pit vipers, carries blood proteins that neutralise rattlesnake venom?

The opossum, specifically the Virginia species, owes its resistance to blood proteins such as one named lethal toxin neutralizing factor.

Captopril, a drug modelled on a peptide in the venom of the jararaca pit viper, treats which condition?

Hypertension could be treated with a pill once chemists copied the venom peptide's trick of blocking ACE, an enzyme involved in regulating blood pressure.

Which is Great Britain's only venomous snake, a species that also lives north of the Arctic Circle?

The European adder is shy and seldom bites unless stepped on or picked up, and killing or harming one is illegal in Great Britain.

An invasive snake that arrived by accident after World War II wiped out most native birds on which Pacific island?

Guam offered so much prey and so few predators that the snakes there grow larger than they do in their native range.

Tens of thousands of garter snakes emerge each spring at the Narcisse Snake Dens in which Canadian province?

Manitoba's water-worn limestone caverns shelter the red-sided garter snakes through winter, and the pits hold the world's largest concentration of them.

The word 'cobra' is short for a phrase meaning 'serpent of the hood' in which language?

Portuguese cobra de capello was borrowed whole into English in the 1670s and only clipped to a single word in 1802.

The word 'viper' is a contraction of a Latin term describing which trait of the snakes?

Live-bearing is the sense of the Latin vivipera, and it fits most vipers, whose young develop inside the mother until they are ready to hatch.

Which branch of zoology, named from the Greek for 'creeping animal', covers snakes, other reptiles and amphibians?

Herpetology lumps the cold-blooded land vertebrates together, so the same specialists study frogs, salamanders, turtles and crocodilians.

What is the name for the fear of snakes, reported by about a third of adults?

Ophidiophobia is built on the Greek word for snake, and it ranks among the most commonly reported phobias of all.

Which Los Angeles Lakers star gave himself the nickname Black Mamba, after the fast-striking African snake?

Kobe Bryant took the name from the codename of Uma Thurman's assassin in the Kill Bill films, hoping his game would strike as surely as the snake.

In which book of the Bible does a talking serpent persuade Eve to eat the forbidden fruit?

Genesis itself never names the serpent as Satan or the Devil; that identification came from later Jewish, Christian and Islamic interpretation.

In the Book of Exodus, whose rod became a serpent and swallowed the rods of Pharaoh's sorcerers?

Aaron's rod later put forth buds, blossoms and ripe almonds, taken as proof of his tribe's exclusive right to the priesthood.

On which Mediterranean island, according to Acts, did a viper bite the shipwrecked apostle Paul without harming him?

Malta's islanders first took the bite as proof that Paul was a murderer, then, when nothing happened to him, decided he was a god.

In Greek myth, which god killed the serpent Python at Delphi and took over its oracle?

Apollo slew the serpent, which had presided over the oracle on behalf of its mother, the earth goddess Gaia, and made the shrine his own.

Which Greek goddess sent two snakes to kill the infant Hercules, who strangled one in each hand?

In one telling Hera struck when the boy was just eight months old, and his twin brother Iphicles could only cry out in fear.

Which figure of Greek myth went down to the underworld after a snakebite killed his wife Eurydice?

Orpheus lost her, in Virgil's telling, when she stepped on a viper while fleeing Aristaeus, and his mournful music won him leave to fetch her back.

In Virgil's Aeneid, which Trojan priest is crushed along with both of his sons by two sea serpents?

Laocoön had just warned the Trojans against the wooden gift left by the Greeks, and his death is the subject of a famous marble group in the Vatican.

Which Egyptian god's greatest enemy was Apep, a giant serpent known as the Lord of Chaos?

Ra was the bringer of light and upholder of order, so the serpent of darkness was his natural opposite, said in some myths to have sprung from Ra's umbilical cord.

Which Aztec deity, whose name means 'feathered serpent' in Nahuatl, had a great centre of worship at Cholula?

Quetzalcoatl ends in coatl, the Nahuatl word for serpent, and the resplendent quetzal was among the animals thought to represent the god.

In Hindu iconography, which god is generally shown with the serpent king Vasuki coiled around his neck?

Shiva wears him as an ornament, and the same serpent served as the rope when the gods and demons churned the Ocean of Milk.

The Great Serpent Mound, the largest snake-shaped earthwork known anywhere in the world, lies in which US state?

Ohio's effigy runs 1,348 feet, roughly a quarter of a mile, and was raised on the plateau of an ancient crater.

The Minoan snake goddess figurines were excavated in 1903 from the Bronze Age palace of Knossos on which island?

Crete's two figurines date to around 1600 BC, and their excavator, Arthur Evans, has since been criticised for his speculative restoration of the best-known one.

At which Maya city does the equinox sun cast a serpent-shaped shadow down the steps of El Castillo?

Chichen Itza's pyramid throws a row of triangular shadows along its north staircase, which ends in carved serpent heads at the base.

The bronze Serpent Column, cast to honour the Greek victory at Plataea, now stands in which modern city?

Istanbul inherited it when Constantine the Great moved the column from Delphi to his new capital in 324, and its three serpent heads survived until the late 17th century.

Which constellation, commonly drawn as a water snake, is the largest of the 88 in the night sky?

Hydra covers 1,303 square degrees and stretches more than 100 degrees across the sky, which makes it the longest constellation too.

In the Harry Potter books, what is the name of the rare language that lets wizards talk with snakes?

Parseltongue is a gift Harry reveals during a duelling class in Chamber of Secrets; it passed to him from Voldemort when the dark wizard tried to kill him.

Which Disney villain carries a cobra-headed staff and turns himself into a giant snake for the final battle?

Jafar uses the staff's hypnotic powers on the Sultan, and Aladdin defeats him by taunting him that the Genie is still more powerful.

In Disney's animated Robin Hood, the hypnotic snake Sir Hiss serves as aide to which character?

Prince John took the throne after Sir Hiss hypnotised the rightful king into leaving to fight in the Crusades.

In which Sherlock Holmes story is the murder weapon a venomous snake sent through a ventilator?

The Speckled Band turns out to be a deadly snake kept by Dr Roylott, and it ends the story by turning on its own master.

Which shock-rock singer made a live boa constrictor part of his 1970s stage show?

Alice Cooper let the snake wrap itself around him on stage, in a show that also staged his mock execution at the gallows.