Snake Facts

Snake, a reptile, easily distinguished by its long, slender body, which tapers gradually to a tail and which is covered with horny scales, but never with bony plates. Snakes have no limbs, though in some species rudimentary hind limbs may be detected. The ribs are very numerous, some snakes having more than 300 pairs. These give form to the body, aid in breathing and are also, in connection with the scales, organs of locomotion. Snakes crawl upon the ground, by swinging their bodies in loops from side to side, and most of them are able to raise their heads and a large portion of their bodies into the air. They have hooked, conical teeth, which serve to hold their prey, but are useless for chewing. While some species are fatally venomous, the majority of them are perfectly harmless.

In the venomous serpents two long poison fangs are firmly fixed in a movable bone, above which is a gland for the secretion of poison. The teeth are perforated by tubes, through which the poison is forced. The tongue of a snake is forked, can be pushed far out of the mouth and is probably an organ of touch, rather than of taste. Snakes have no eyelids and no external ears, and their nostrils are on the snout. The lower jaw is loosely articulated to the upper, and the tissues about the upper, and the tissues about the mouth are so elastic that a snake can swallow an animal really much greater in diameter than itself. Some snakes lay eggs, but others produce the young alive. In most species the mother takes great care of her young, and it is said that in one species, at least, the mother, when alarmed, will open her mouth and allow the young to run to cover within her body.

Each locality of the temperate and torrid zones has its own peculiar species of snakes, some of which live only in warm, arid regions; some live in moist, shady places, and others live in water. All the species are vastly more numerous and much larger in the tropics than in the temperate regions. There are over 1500 species known, and about 20 poisonous species are found in the United States. Of these the large majority, however, live only in the southwestern portions of the country. Two rattlesnakes and the copperhead are the only poisonous natives of the Northern states.