Portal:Snakes

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The Snake Portal

Corallus caninus

Snakes are elongated, limbless 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, 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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Russell's viper (Daboia russelii) is a highly venomous snake in the family Viperidae native to South Asia. It was described in 1797 by George Shaw and Frederick Polydore Nodder. It is named after Patrick Russell and is one of the big four snakes in India. (Full article...)

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... that when a Russian warship asked the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island to surrender, their response was "Russian warship, go fuck yourself"?
... that following the introduction of the round goby to Lake Erie, the Lake Erie watersnake's population recovered enough to be removed from the U.S. threatened species list?
... that table tennis commentator Adam Bobrow's nickname "Snakeman" comes from a trick shot called "the snake"?
... 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 the Churah Valley kukri snake was discovered because of an Instagram post?
... that salt marsh snakes drink only rainwater?

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... that the Honduran milk snake's color resemblance to the coral snake, known as Batesian mimicry, helps protect it from potential predators?
...that the range of Nelson's Milksnake (Albino specimen pictured) from Mexico is linked to watercourses, and that it was thought to be the same subspecies as the more common Sinaloan Milksnake until 1978?
... that forest cobras (pictured) can grow up to 2.7 metres (8.9 feet) and kill in 20 minutes?
... that Dubois' seasnake is one of at least seventeen sea snake species living in the Coral Sea, and has the world's most toxic sea snake venom?
... that Lycodon chrysoprateros, a snake species endemic to the Philippines, is considered critically endangered because its range is only 52 square kilometres (20 sq mi)?

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Quality Content

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 1A common watersnake shedding its skin (from Snake)
Image 2Eastern hognose hooding. (from Snake)
Image 3Reticulated python skull, showing jaw movements when swallowing (from Snake)
Image 4Rod of Asclepius, in which the snake, through ecdysis, symbolizes healing (from Snake)
Image 5The 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)
Image 6African egg-eating snake eating an egg (from Snake)
Image 7The 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 8A neonate sidewinder rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes) sidewinding (from Snake)
Image 9Mouse embryo 12 day post fertilization side by side with corn snake embryo 2 days post ovo-positioning. (from Snake)
Image 10The world's most venomous snake, based on LD₅₀, is the inland taipan of Australia. (from Venomous snake)
Image 11The garter snake has been studied for sexual selection. (from Snake)
Image 12Common Tree Snake (from Australian snake habitats)
Image 13Close up of a red-sided garter snake
Image 14Snakes composing a bronze kerykeion from the mythical Longanus river in Sicily (from Snake)
Image 15Eupodophis descouensi (from Snake)
Image 16Innocuous milk snakes are often mistaken for coral snakes whose venom is deadly to humans. (from Snake)
Image 17Wart snake (Acrochordus granulatus) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 18Snake 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 19The Indian cobra is the most common subject of snake charmings. (from Snake)
Image 20Approximate world distribution of snakes (from Snake)
Image 21A snaked coiled in the cavity of a tree (from Snake)
Image 22A red-sided garter snake (from Narcisse Snake Dens)
Image 23The lateral view of a king cobra's skull showing fangs (from Venomous snake)
Image 24Australia-Oceania Köppen Map (from Australian snake habitats)
Image 25Medusa (1597) by the Italian artist Caravaggio (from Snake)
Image 26Most 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 27Common Blind Snake (Ramphotyphlops braminus) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 28Snake meat, in a Taipei restaurant (from Snake)
Image 29Eupodophis descouensi hind leg (from Snake)
Image 30Crawling prints of a snake (from Snake)
Image 31An adult Barbados threadsnake, Leptotyphlops carlae, on an American quarter dollar (from Snake)
Image 32Vipera berus, one fang in glove with a small venom stain, the other still in place (from Snake)
Image 33Eupodophis descouensi (from Snake)
Image 34A 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 35The Binocellate Cobra(naja naja) (from List of snakes of South Asia)
Image 36Ballcourt 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 37Diagram illustrating differential somite size due to difference in somitogenesis clock oscillation (from Snake)
Image 38Narcisse Snake Dens welcome sign (from Narcisse Snake Dens)
Image 39Dolichophis jugularis preying on a sheltopusik (from Snake)
Image 40Golden tree snake climbing a flower (from Snake)
Image 41Tetrapodophis (from Snake)