Rats at Night – National Geographic

January 19 2009 | Info and Random and Reptiles | No Comments »

How Do Snakes Move?

September 29 2008 | Info and Random and Reptiles | No Comments »

Slithering Into Summer

June 20 2008 | Info and Random and Reptiles and Snake tips | No Comments »

Venomous Reptiles — World’s 5 Deadliest Snakes

Snakes are both infamous and revered due to their perplexing way of living and characteristics that vastly differs from other animals. Add to that the fact that they have this unmistakable aura that commands fear among other species in the animal kingdom which is not unfounded. Snakes are very famous for having very potent venom with the most lethal of all able to kill a number of fully grown human adults.

Ironically, the world’s most venomous snakes can be found in only one continent and that is, unlike popular beliefs, the Australian deserts, plains and rainforests. Here are the countdown of the world’s deadliest snakes and how potent their venoms are.

1. Inland Taipan Or Fierce Snake – Oxyuranus Microlepidotus

The Inland Taipan is the world’s most venomous snake with an lethal dose of 0.01 mg/kg, it is about 10 times as venomous as a Mojave rattlesnake and 750 times as venomous as a common cobra. The venom of the Inland Taipan is capable of killing 250,000 mice or the equivalent of 100 adult men. Although the Taipan is the world’s most lethal snake, it has yet to take a victim, several bites have been recorded and successfully treated by taipan antivenom which is produced and manufactured by the Australian Reptile Park and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne. Its main diet is mainly small mammals, particularly native rats, which at times, reach plague proportions. This snake is found on black soil plains of the ‘channel country’ of the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and North South Wales.

2. King Brown Snake – Pseudechis Australis

In comparison with the Inland Taipan, King Brown Snakes’ venom is not that lethal, however it produces its venom in very large quantities. The average Tiger Snake produces around 10-20mg when milked. In comparison, a good sized King Brown may deliver over 150mg in one bite. Unlike the Inland Taipan, the King Brown Snake has the record of the most killings in Australia. One reason for this is because of its common sightings all around Australia as well as the use of the wrong anti-venom. The King Brown Snake, is not really of the Brown Snake genus but actually belongs to the Black Snake genus. For this reason, many people died because Brown Snake Anti-Venom was used instead of Black Snake Anti-Venom.

3. Papuan Taipan – Oxyuranus Scutellatus

The Papuan Taipan, as its name suggests can be found in the Papua New Guinea, it is a close relative of the Australian Inland and Coastal Taipans. Its venom is just slightly more potent than that of the Coastal Taipans however due to poor facilities and lack of anti-venom supplies, a Papuan Taipan bite is still a very serious medical emergency with almost 50% of its victims requiring mechanical ventilation. Like the Australian Taipans, Papuan Taipan’s diet is mostly small mammals, thus they live closely to human habitations.

4&5. MainLand & Eastern Tiger Snake

Mainland and Eastern Tiger Snakes occupy both the 4ht and 5th places because of the strength of its venom and the large quantity in which it is being administered to the snakes’ victims. Its venom is mainly neurotoxic, affecting the central nervous system, but also causes muscle damage and affects blood clotting. They can typically be found through Western and South Australia and Tasmania.

It is very easy to judge someone or something just because of the harm that it poses on you, but we have to remember that no one would kill someone else unless it is provoked. We want our autonomy so it is little to no wonder why some species would want the same as well.

March 05 2008 | Info and Random and Reptiles | No Comments »

Water Snakes

There are many types of water snakes found in the world. The type of snake you encounter depends on the region in which you are traveling. You should know that a snake could strike you from a distance of half of their body length. Hence it is safe to stay at a distance more than half of their body length. This striking distance is only when you encounter the snake in land.

In water their striking distance is very limited. Better avoid the areas in which the snakes sun. Usually they will be sunning in the branches that protrude over the waterfront so that if they find any encounter they will drop themselves into water and escape. That is why when you are canoeing you have to be careful when you move into the low-lying areas where branches of trees protrude over the waterfront. Some of the common water snakes that you might come across are the northern water snakes, red belly water snakes, banded water snakes, cottonmouth snakes, and the brown water snakes. The northern water snake is usually 22 to 59 inches in length and is found in the lakes, streams, rivers, marshes, swamps, ditches, and ponds. It is thick bodied and has a dark band around its neck. You can find half moon spots in its belly. It is found in the central and eastern US. Usually they come out in the night.

The cottonmouth water moccasin is a poisonous snake, which is also aggressive in the sense that it will approach the intruder in the area. It is semi aquatic in nature. Usually they lie on the water logs with part of their body in water waiting for their prey to come within their reach. This kind of water snake could be having a dark body color and a light belly color. It might also have body cross-bands. When this snake bites you it would latch on to the area with its bite rather than the bite and release pattern found in the other snakes. It has a powerful jaw. Some of the subspecies of this water snake include the eastern, western, and the Florida cottonmouth.

The brown water snake is usually active during the day and rarely hunts during the night. Fishes and frogs constitute its main dish. It also climbs the branches to sleep on the overhanging branches over the water. It usually escapes when you frighten it and if you need a bite you can catch it! It is usually found in the southeastern U.S. The Diamondback water snakes have a chain like pattern in its body and have a yellow belly. It is found in the marshes, swamps, and the lakes of south central and southwestern U.S. they have long teeth and hence the bite from these snakes would be more painful.

February 13 2008 | Animals and Info and Random and Reptiles and Water Snakes | No Comments »

General Facts About Snakes

In the previous section I covered the history of snakes, how they got to be what they are now. But what are they? How do they live their lives, where do they live? This is what I’ll address in this section.

Snakes have a long, narrow body. Their internal organs are made to fit their long and narrow body type. Snakes have only one functioning lung, so it’s vital that their environment is clean and not polluted.

An interesting fact to know; to find out how many “vertabreas” the snake has, you can count the number of belly scales. Usually there will be a new scale for each vertebrea. It’s jaw is evolved so that the snake can swallow prey many times its size. The bottom part of the jaw is not locked together, as it is in most other animals, but it can be separated into two parts. This way its mouth can open up, swallow the prey, and then pull its jaw together again. When the snake does this, it looks like it’s yawning, opening the mouth up wide and shutting it again.

Their vision is just awesome, they don’t see like we do; rather they see heat and movements. They also don’t hear anything but very low frequencies, so talking to a snake will not work. You can shout you lungs out, the snake cannot hear you. It does however feel the vibration, so stomping your feet in the ground will definitely get its attention. If you ever seen a cobra hypnotized by someone playing a flute, you can be sure that the person is stomping his foot in the ground or similar, as the snake would not hear the flute.

The males have two reproductive organs, the hemipenes. During mating only one will actually carry sperm. With young snakes you can sex the snakes by “popping” them. That means that to check for a male you pop out the hemipenes by applying pressure to the bottom of the tail. If done wrong this can hurt the snake and make it infertile, so you should always have someone show you how to do it before attempting. This cannot be done with other then very young snakes. The males are usually a little wider around the vent area before the tail narrows down quickly (because of the hemipenes inside), while in the females the tail narrows down more evenly. But this can be very difficult to see with the naked eye, so the best way to sex a snake is by “probing”. Proping is where you stick a probe into the snake’s vent and see how far in it goes before you meet resistance. In males the hemipenes makes the probe go in further then in the female.

When it comes to birth, snakes are not good parents. The fathers are completely absent, he impregnates the female and leaves. The female then either lays her eggs, or has live babies. Pythons and corn snakes lay eggs, while boas have live babies. Some snakes lay ontop of the eggs till they hatch, actually regulating the temperature for them, while others such as the corn snake just lays them and leaves. A pregnant snake is said to be “gravid”. After the babies are born or hatched they are on their own. This might be natures way of regulating the snake population, because a snake can have very many babies! However, without any help from the parents most don’t make it. For these it really is survival of the fittest, but also alot of luck!

Skin and Shedding

Snake skin is scaly, but not slimy which is a very common misconception. Snakes are NOT worms!

Their skin is built up by scales, which help the snake’s movement by gripping the surface. As new cells grow under the snake’s skin, the new cells push the old cells up, creating a transparent skin. When the snake grows and the top layer of skin is being pushed even further, the snake goes through a process of shedding.

The shedding has several phases; first the skin becomes rough and the snake’s belly usually turns pinkish. Then its eyes reach the “opaque” stage, its eyes turns blue and the snake is basically blind for a few days. This is because the snake is shedding the layer over its eyes. Then the snake starts looking normal again, and it’s very hard to see that it’s shedding. Next thing is to rub its skin against the surface, rocks etc, to push off the skin from head to tail. It looks like a sock thats pulled off, ending up inside out. The snake’s skin is supposed to come off in one piece. Young snakes shed often; every month or two. When they get older their grow rate decreases, and they shed more rarely. Although they do most of their growing in the first couple of years, snakes never stop growing. Adult snakes shed a couple of times a year. Shedding is also very important in getting rid of parasites. Habitat

Snakes can now be found throughout the world, the only place there are no snakes is in the arctic region. They are such adaptable creatures, there just isn’t any comparison to their success. They live in deserts, cities, oceans, lakes, forests, mountains, savannas, rain forests etc. The list could go on and on. Snakes are everywhere.

Snakes in cooler areas usually go into a sort of hibernation during the wintertime, called brumation. Unlike hibernation where pretty much everything shuts down and wakes up again in spring, brumation is what you could call “do nothing”. All the body functions are intact and the snake even moves around a little bit. However, it mostly lays there and waits for spring. Usually the snake chooses a place underground, so that it can stay as warm as possible during winter. Almost every snake that lives in an area with cool temperatures during winter brumates, otherwise it would not survive.

There are many places where snakes that are not native to the area have been introduced, and now they are thriving. In many cases this proves a real challenge to the natural ecosystem, as the new snakes push other species out, or the simple fact that humans do not want them there. This is why people who have snakes, cannot just go to the park and drop them off! I cannot stress this enough, just watch what’s happened in the Everglades in Florida. Now there are anacondas and reticulated pythons breeding in an area where they do not belong, because careless owners who were faced with snakes they couldn’t handle or didn’t want let them loose. These kinds of actions can have fatal consequences.

Diet

All snakes are carnivorous, but the diet varies greatly depending on habitat and size. Most eat rodents; mice, rats, rabbits, gerbils etc. Others eat fish, eggs, lizards and even other snakes. The very big species can eat pretty much everything from hippos to crocs.

Snakes are amazing in terms of patience, they can lay in one spot for days, just waiting for a prey to pass by. If a prey comes by, the snake will use its attack method, whether it is constriction or venom, to kill it.

Snakes cannot taste anything, and does not chew. There is more about how snakes are able to swallow a prey many times its size in the anatomy section, but basically its bottom jaw gets separated in two while eating, and muscle movements help the snake swallow. The teeth are pointed towards the back of its mouth, so when a prey is bitten it’s almost impossible for it to escape. The more the prey tries to push itself out, the better grip the snake gets. It’s so clever, and so simple. Anyone who has ever been bitten by a snake, knows that trying to pull the finger out of it’s mouth rarely works. To get your finger loose, you actually have to push it further into the mouth to get loose from the grip, and then open the mouth and your free.

If the prey poses no threat, such as a pinkie mouse, the snake will usually not bother to waste energy killing it, but rather swallows it alive.

After the snake has eaten it’s time for it to digest its food. This is very important and the snake cannot be bothered during this process. This process usually takes around 48 hours, and if the snake feels threatened, the prey is too big, or the weather isn’t warm enough it will regurgitate (throw up). Regurgitation is a serious thing for all snakes, their systems basically gets turned upside down. The best thing to do after a regurge is to wait at least ten days before trying to feed again. How often a snake eats varies from specie to specie. Very often the males (sometimes females) fast around breeding season no matter if they actually breed or not. Snakes might also not eat if they are shedding.

January 29 2008 | Info and Random and Reptiles | No Comments »

Sneaky Snakes

By Joshua Biggar

Snakes. Just the mention of the word can send chills up the spine or send one fleeing in the opposite direction. To some they are just scary, slithery, sinister serpents. However, they are also sneaky. Yes, sneaky. The serpent has been known for its sneakiness since the beginning. Remember Eve? It was because of the sneaky sales pitch of the serpent that Eve “bought”, Adam “bit” , and they were both “booted out” of the Garden of Eden. Oh yes, snakes can be extremely sneaky, and can show their craftiness in a variety of ways.

The American Copperhead is a great example of a cunning culprit. This snake has a rust and copper colored body with dark crisscrossing bands. It has a bright copper colored head, hence the name, Copperhead. This snake is easily recognizable, that is if you see it. Because of the snake’s markings, they are easily hidden. Let this snake curl up on a pile of fallen leaves and you may never even know it was there. Pretty slick huh? But that’s not all. These snakes learn how to be masters of guile at a very early age, as a matter of fact from the moment they are born. The baby Copperhead is born with a yellow tipped tail which it uses to lure unsuspecting prey. The juvenile snake hides beneath the leaves and sticks its wiggling tail up. The tail, resembling a grubworm, attracts moles, mice, and other such rodents. When the small mixed-up mammals take the bait, the clever Copperhead enjoys his dinner.

Besides being deceitful for dinner, snakes also use their misleading mannerisms to protect themselves. The colorful yet, allusive Coral Snake, for instance, will curl up and hide its head underneath its body when it feels threatened. Then it bends and presents its tail in such a way that it looks just like the snake’s head. When a predator attempts to attack, the snake bites back injecting neurotoxic venom paralyzing its victim. The predator in this case sometimes becomes the prey.

Just as the Coral Snake has an ingenious way of protecting itself, so does the Coral Snake Copy Cat, the Scarlet Kingsnake. This snake uses its looks to confound and confuse. The nonvenomous Scarlet Kingsnake very much resembles the very venomous Coral Snake. The kingsnake has the same colors of red, black, and yellow. The difference, however, is in the pattern. The old rhyme “Red meets yellow, Kill a fellow, Red meets black, Friend of Jack”, helps us to aptly identify the snake, but thoroughly mixes up would be predators and sometimes helps prevent this “legless lizard” from becoming lunch.

Yes, snakes are still as sneaky as ever. They still bewilder, beguile, and sometimes even bewitch. They are masters of disguise as well as masters of deception and they probably always will be. So if you happen up on one of these “sneaky snakes”, just acknowledge, admire, and then allow him to do his thing.

November 12 2007 | Animals and Info and Random and Reptiles and Snake tips | No Comments »

Juvenile Rat Snake

The picture above is a picture of a juvenile Black Rat Snake rescued from my cat.

November 03 2007 | Reptiles | No Comments »