Snake Trivia
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109 free Snake trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
51 free Snake trivia questions with answers. Snakes turn up in more of our stories than almost any other animal, from the Garden of Eden to Indiana Jones, and this quiz covers the real creatures as thoroughly as the legends. You will meet the world's longest, heaviest, smallest and most venomous snakes, learn how a snake smells with its tongue and hears without ears, and find out which countries have no snakes at all and why the story about St Patrick does not hold up. The early questions are easy enough for a curious eight-year-old, the middle ones suit a pub quiz crowd, and the last stretch will test anyone who has kept snakes or studied herpetology. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and other reference sources before publishing, and each question shows its explanation and citation after you answer. Play it for a shareable score, use it as a classroom warm-up for a reptile unit, or drop it into trivia night as an animal round nobody will forget.
30 of 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Snakes are found on every continent except which one?
Antarctica
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.
Q 02What does a snake do with its forked tongue?
Collect scent particles
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.
Q 03The vomeronasal organ in the roof of a snake's mouth is commonly known by which anatomist's name?
Jacobson's
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.
Q 04Instead of movable eyelids, what covers a snake's eyes?
A transparent scale
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.
Q 05How does a snake shed its skin?
In one complete piece
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.
Q 06Roughly how many species of snakes are there?
About 3,900
About 3,900 snake species were recognized by the early 2020s, with dozens more described each year; the great majority are non-venomous.
Q 07Which snake is the longest venomous snake in the world, with a record length of 5.85 metres?
King cobra
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.
Q 08The world's longest venomous snake is the only one known to do what with its eggs?
Build an above-ground nest
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.
Q 09The black mamba's body is olive or grey, so which part gives it its name?
The inside of its mouth
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.
Q 10Which shy Australian snake is considered the most venomous in the world by the LD50 test in mice?
Inland taipan
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.
Q 11What is the longest snake species alive today?
Reticulated python
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.
Q 12Which South American snake is the heaviest in the world?
Green anaconda
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.
Q 13The Barbados threadsnake, one of the world's smallest snakes, was compared by its discoverer to the width of what?
A spaghetti noodle
Q 21Which body part does a snake rest on the ground to pick up vibrations in stereo?
Their lower jaw
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.
Q 22Snake venom is a modified form of what?
Saliva
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.
Q 23Albert Calmette's 1890s antivenom, the first sold commercially, was produced by immunising which animals?
Horses
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.
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.
Q 14In which country's coal mine were the fossils of the giant snake Titanoboa discovered?
Colombia
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.
Q 15Which of these island nations has no native land snakes?
New Zealand
New Zealand has no native land snakes and bans importing them, even for zoos; its native reptiles are lizards and the tuatara.
Q 16What is the scientific verdict on the legend that St Patrick banished every serpent from the island?
It never had any after the Ice Age
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.
Q 17Brazil's Ilha da Queimada Grande is closed to the public because it is home to thousands of what?
Golden lancehead vipers
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.
Q 18The rattle on a rattlesnake's tail is made of what?
Hollow keratin segments
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.
Q 19Rattlesnakes are native only to which part of the world?
The Americas
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.
Q 20What does the small pit in front of each eye on pit vipers such as rattlesnakes sense?
Infrared heat
Infrared heat is what the loreal pits detect, letting the snake locate warm-blooded prey in total darkness and strike accurately at it.
Q 24Which snake family includes the cobras, mambas and coral snakes?
Elapidae
Elapidae is the family of venomous snakes with short, fixed front fangs; besides cobras, mambas and coral snakes it includes the kraits.
Q 25In Greek myth, which hero beheaded Medusa, the Gorgon with snakes for hair?
Perseus
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.
Q 26What is the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail called?
Ouroboros
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.
Q 27The Rod of Asclepius, the symbol of medicine, shows how many snakes wrapped around a staff?
One
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.
Q 28The rearing cobra worn on the crowns of Egyptian pharaohs is called what?
Uraeus
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.
Q 29In Norse myth, the world-encircling serpent that bites its own tail is which god's child?
Loki
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.
Q 30The board game Snakes and Ladders originated in which country as a lesson about virtue and vice?
India
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.