Snakes!

Here is my page about snakes! Although I listed my favourite snakes from the well-known families of snakes on the main animals page, I love all snakes. This is my happy snake place.

Snakes and you

Real animal lovers love all animals, including the scaly ones!

There is no good reason to kill any healthy, wild, native snake, venomous or not, for a reason other than scientific research. All of these snakes are useful parts of their ecosystems, controlling prey populations and feeding predators higher up on the food chain like hawks and larger mammals. Snakes can also benefit humans, from removing Lyme disease-carrying ticks with the mammals they eat, to producing medically-significant venom. But regardless of a species' utility to humans, I believe they have a right to exist for their own sake, too.

If you kill snakes, or if you know someone who does, consider relocations (less than a quarter of a mile away); reducing things that appeal to snakes like piles of wood for habitat and rodent infestations for food; protecting family and pets by educating and training them on how to identify or avoid snakes; or simply learning to live with, and love, these awesome scaly creatures.

Invasive species are a different case. It is best to humanely remove them from their non-native habitats. Invasive snakes include Boiga irregularis in Guam (which have unfortunately caused native bird extinctions) and Python bivittatus in South Florida.

Snake facts to bring to family gatherings

Some cute snakes to show people who aren't sure about snakes:

If someone has a phobia of snakes, please respect that! If they want to overcome the phobia, suggest they read neutral descriptions of snakes without pictures first.


• Imantodes cenchoa, which have big eyes like soft toys
  
• Eryx jayakari, which I have seen described as "sentient sock puppets" and "a child's drawing of a snake"
  
• Heterodon nasicus, which have an adorable stubby nose and a propensity to play dead, like an opossum
  
• Ahaetulla prasina, which look perpetually judgemental, like goats
  
• Langaha madagascariensis, which have one of the more unusual noses in the animal kingdom
  
• Python regius, which are adorable snakes common in the pet trade, despite their particular care requirments.
  

King cobras (Ophiophagus hannah) aren't true cobras! The true cobras belong to the Naja genus. The largest king cobra was nearly 6 meters (20 feet), making it the longest venomous snake. They are also my partner's favourite snake, because he "likes their dopey eyes".

Death adders (Acanthophis) look like vipers, but they're actually elapids! This means they're more closely related to cobras than to adders.

Pope's pit vipers (Trimeresurus popeiorum) have an unusual specific name that is declined in the genitive plural (a Latin case that is similar to the possessive in English). This is because they are named after both herpetologist Clifford H. Pope and his wife, Sarah.

Most snakes are not especially sexually dimorphic - when they are, usually it is males or females that are generally larger than the other sex. However, the males and females of some snakes, like temple pit vipers (Tropidolaemus wagleri), look like different species. In temple pit vipers, the females are relatively large, wide, and striped with black and yellow. The males, meanwhile, are small, thin, and mostly green.

More favourite snakes

I listed my favourite snakes from the five main families of snakes (boas, pythons, vipers, elapids, and colubrids) on the main animals page. But, as you can guess, there are many snake species I know and love.

to add:

Boidae Lichanura, Charina, Eryx jayakari (egg-layers), Calabaria reinhardtii, Epicrates

Pythonidae Antaresia my beloved, Simalia oenpelliensis skin colour change

Vipers Bitis gabonica, Azemiops feae, Causus, Crotalus,

Elapids Laticauda colubrina, Emydocephalus, Acanthophis, literally any coral

Colubrids Chrysopelea paradisi, Rhabdophis tigrinus, Dasypeltis, Dispholidus typhus

Other families of snake Acrochordus javanicus, Xenodermus javanicus, Erpeton tentaculatum, one of the Cylindrophis, Xenopeltis, Xenocalamus

Snake venom

Dangerous things are fascinating. Despite humanity's fear of snakes, we also find them intriguing.

There are two main factors for what makes a snake bite dangerous - what the venom is, and how it can get from the snake to you. (Other factors include local cultural beliefs about medical care, high or low snake density, preferred habitats, availability of antivenom, and others. I know less about those so I won't comment on them until I learn more.)

Snake venom is a type of evolved saliva that contains zootoxins, or chemicals that target the functions of cells and organs in living things. A venomous snake may have one category of toxins in their venom, or they may have a variety - the toxin composition depends on, among other factors, the preferred prey items and the energetic cost of producing the toxin. Even among genera and species, venom composition can vary.

There are three main categories of venom, each with multiple sub-categories. Cytotoxins target the cells of the envenomated organism, breaking down their cell membranes and killing them. Different cytotoxins have evolved in various elapid and viperid species. Some cytotoxins target the cell membranes of any nearby cells, which ruptures them. Some, called cardiotoxins, specifically target the cells of the heart, causing irregular heartbeats or simply stopping it. Haemotoxins can cause extreme blood clotting, which leads to a slow and painful death as the surrounding tissue is pre-digested; or the opposite, excessive bleeding until the organism dies. These types of toxins tend to appear in viper venom, such as in adders and rattlesnakes.

Neurotoxins target the neurons in the brain of the target animal. They can interfere with the transmission of nerve impulses, which are ions traded between the end of one neuron and the beginning of another. Neurotoxins can cause numbness, muscle contractions, paralysis, and eventually death. They are common in elapid snakes like mambas, cobras, and sea snakes.

Myotoxins harm muscle cells, specifically. They are fast killers, often causing the target organism to die of suffocation when it can no longer move its diaphragh muscles to breathe. They are present in some rattlesnakes.

The types of toxins that venomous snakes have in their venoms aid specific snakes against specific prey, though broad generalizations (such as that rodent eaters always have haemotoxic venom) are impossible to make.

Pedantic people may tell you that snakes are venomous, not poisonous. You can be extra-pedantic and correct them in return - there are poisonous snakes! Some Rhabdophis and Thamnophis species have poisonous amphibians in their diets. The snakes have evolved not only to withstand their prey's defense mechanisms; but even to use it for their own benefit. Some Rhabdophis snakes consume toxic toads, and that toxin ends up in their blood and salivary glands. And Thamnophis sirtalis garter snakes in the northwestern North America sequester newt poison in their livers, making them unappealing to their own predators.

If you are bitten by a venomous snake, try to stay calm, and get to a medical professional as quickly as you can. Specific actions you take until you are in a hospital depend on the type of snake you were bitten by, and beyond my area of expertise. It is usually fairly easy to avoid being bitten by a snake - just stay a respectful distance away from it; and walk slowly and carefully to avoid stepping on a snake accidentally.

Amateur herping

Video game snakes

There will be game spoilers below. This list does not include fantastical snake-like hybrid creatures, including medusae and dragons; just creatures that mostly resemble real snakes.

Snake from Blockade (1976): The original, and hungriest, video game snake. More info

Multiple snakes from Pokemon (1996-): My favourite snake Pokemon is Seviper. (My favourite Pokemon, however, is Reshiram.) More info

Yawn from Resident Evil (1996-): Many other snakes exist in the series. And much like real snakes, they defend themselves when their hiding spot is destroyed. More info

Giant snake from Wario Land II (1998): a bright green boid with, strangely, human-like eyelids. Snakes have a clear eye cap, called a brille, that replaces the function of the eyelids in protecting the eye. More info

Snake from Taco Bell: Tasty Temple Challenge (2000): Your standard green cobra enemy. Most "cobras" (which I loosely define as Naja, Ophiophagus, Hemachatus, Pseudohaje, Hydrodynastes, and any others I'm forgetting) in real life are some variety of tan, brown, and black. There aren't any that I know of that are emerald-green. More info

Sea snake from Yume Nikki (2004): a denizen of the docks world. More info

Mighty Bitey Snake from Mother III (2004): an apt name. More info

Mystic Snake Coil from Terraria (2011): not a particularly useful tool, but cool, of course! More info

Snake from Grand Theft Auto V (2013): The pattern of a Gaboon viper grafted onto a ball python model. Not particularly realistic, but still stylish. More info

Snake from Lisa: The Painful (2014): Truly a painful experience. More info

Jormungandr from God of War (2018): It makes me to happy to see an ally snake in a video game! Too often, snakes are enemy chumps. More info

Multiple snakes from Red Dead Redemption II (2018): Finally, a bit of realism! Multiple Agkistrodon and Crotalus species, as well as sippies (Nerodia sipedon). In real life, rattlesnakes are heavily persecuted by ignorant people. More info

Great Serpent from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019): A beautiful, massive white snake - a symbol of rebirth. More info

Sierpes from Blasphemous (2019): A horned viper, like those of the Cerastes genus. Many snakes have appendages like this, whether above their eyes or on the tips of their noses - from Bitis rhinoceros to Philodryas baroni. More info

Adder from Inscryption (2021): probably Vipera berus from the common name "adder". The venom of these snakes - the only venomous snake native to the UK - is relatively not lethal, despite the in-game description. A bite from another adder, the Acanthophis death adders of Australia, is a greater cause for concern. More info

Snake from Animal Well (2024): A reference to the Snake genre of video games. More info

Snake from Momodora: Moonlit Farewell (2024): a giant talking snake, and a true albino (given its red eyes) - not amelanistic or leucistic, two similar pigmentation shortages.

A special shout-out to:
Solid Snake from Metal Gear (1987)
Snake Man from Mega Man III (1992)
Snake from Animal Crossing (2001)
Blake the Snake from Lisa: The Painful (2014)
Jake the Snake from Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015)
Parsnik from Undertale (2015)
Vera from Monster Prom (2018)
Dusa from Hades (2020)

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