Snake Facts

Slithering facts about snakes — the legless reptiles with a lot more going on than you think.

Snakes (suborder Serpentes) are a highly successful group of carnivorous reptiles comprising over 3,700 species distributed across every continent except Antarctica. All snakes evolved from lizard ancestors approximately 100–150 million years ago, likely underground or in aquatic environments, which explains the loss of limbs as an ancestral condition. Snake sensory biology is remarkably specialised: pit vipers, pythons, and boas possess infrared-sensing pit organs that detect the body heat of prey with enough resolution to strike accurately in complete darkness. Snakes do not have external ear openings and cannot hear airborne sound in the conventional sense — the swaying of a snake charmer's cobra responds to visual cues and the vibrations of the charmer's foot tapping, not the music.

The venom of snakes is a highly evolved saliva, chemically complex and varying significantly between species. Snake venoms are categorised broadly as neurotoxic (attacking the nervous system), haemotoxic (attacking blood and tissue), or cytotoxic, though many venoms contain components from multiple categories.