Snake | Life cycle. Scientific Name, Movement and Characterstics (2024)

Snakes are reptiles. They don’t have limbs and wings. Snakes have a cylindrical body, starting with a head and ending with a tapering tail. According to zoologists, there are 3400 types of snake in the world, out of which 600 are venomous, and all are carnivorous.

Aldo Check: Velociraptor

According to different species, they can live on land and in water as well. Some of the snakes can live on both. Different snakes have different attacking skills. Some kill their prey by injecting their venom before eating while some snakes attack their prey in such a bad way that it can stop blood supply and eat them.

In this article, we will study Snakes, the Life cycle of snakes, characteristics of snakes and many more.

Scientific Names of Snake

Venomous Species

• African Black Mamba – Dendroaspis polylepis
• Coastal Taipan – Oxyuranus scutellatus scutellatus
• Common Death Adder – Acanthophis antarcticus
• Indian cobra – Naja naja
• Inland Taipan – Oxyuranus microlepidotus
• Common Krait – Bungarus caeruleus
• Russell’s Viper – Daboia russelii
• Saw-scaled Viper – Echis carinatus
• King Cobra – Ophiophagus hannah

Also Check: Clownfish

Non Venomous Species

• Common watersnake – Nerodia sipedon.
• Indian python –Python molurus.
• Burmese python – Python bivittatus
• Common Wolf Snake – Lycodoncapucinus.
• Red Sand Boa – Eryx johnii.
• Eastern ratsnake – Pantherophis alleghaniensis.

Snakes: Where do they live?

Snakes are found everywhere in the world except Antarctica as snakes are cold-blooded animals, so they cannot survive there. They are found in freshwater sources, land, seas, marshes, oceans, tropical forests, deserts and even under old buildings. Snakes want to stay safe from the outside world and find a hole to stay there. They always find area that has minimum disturbance.

Also Check: Swordfish

Life Cycle of Snakes

• Stage 1 – The Egg

After mating of male and female snakes, females store male sperm in their oviduct for 1 or 2 months. After fertilization, female snakes lay eggs. A female snake can produce 10 to 15 eggs. These eggs are white in color, large, soft and like leather. Female snakes guard these eggs before hatching.

• Stage 2 – Young Snake

When the egg breaks, a young snake emerges. These young snakes are known as Snakelet. They are hatched from eggs by breaking the eggshell with their teeth or if sufficient heat is given to the eggs. Young snakes shed their skin four times a year so that they can enter the adult stage. During this stage, they eat smaller reptiles and rodents

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• Stage 3 – Adult Snake

Adult snakes shed their skin one or two times a year. Adult snakes hunt prey for survival. They are sexually mature with a span of 2 to 3 years.

Characteristics of Snakes

Some of the characteristics of Snakes are given below:

• Snakes are reptiles that don’t have wings and limbs.
• Snakes evolved from limbed lizards back in the Jurassic era, as they have some traces of hindlimbs.
• Snakes have horny scales all over the body.
• Snakes cannot produce sound as they don’t have a vocal cord or larynx, but they can hiss.
• Snakes don’t have any moveable eyelids.
• They don’t have any ears, so they can’t receive any sound waves.
• They shed their skin many times a year.
• Snakes have an organ that secretes venom.
• They have breathing systems developed as tracheal lungs.
• In snakes, organs are placed side by side and not oriented bilaterally.
• Snakes have backward teeth, which are fused with the head bones.

Also Check: Whale

Movement in Snakes

Different snakes make different movements. There are four types of movements as per the zoologists.

• Serpentine Method

Generally, snakes move through serpentine methods on land. They don’t have limbs. So they bend and unbend by using their muscles, which creates serpentine motion. In snakes, scales are present in the lower part of their body, touching the ground, and they use these scales for this motion. When a snake moves in a serpentine motion, hurdles cannot stop them from moving. Most snakes move by this method.

• Concertina Method

This method is useful for moving in tight spaces. Snakes hold tightly their back portion and extend their front portion using the back as a pivot. Then, the snakes straightened their front portion to move the unbraced back portion forward.

• Side Winding

This is a very difficult movement for snakes to move on the ground. Side Winding is useful to move on slippery or loose surfaces. Mostly snakes living in desert areas use Side Winding to move on sand. In Side Winding, snakes make a diagonal displacement by bending and unbending instead of moving forward. This movement is useful for snakes living in muddy areas, swamps and deserts.

• Rectilinear method

This movement is used by snakes to move closer to anything suspicious or prey. This is a slow movement. Snakes use contraction and relaxation of muscles and make soundless movements by using front-facing slow bending motion. The surface is gripped by the belly scales.

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Snakes and Venom

Marine snakes are more venomous than the snakes living on land. This venom is also extracted to make medicines. The buccal cavity is where the sac is present in which venom is produced. This sac is connected via a duct to the front canine teeth. The amount of venom that a snake wants to inject into a prey can be controlled by an adult snake, but a baby snake takes time to develop this capability and inject more venom than required.

Snakes don’t waste their venom on bigger things that they can’t eat. Therefore 40% of the snake bite is defensive. Sometimes snakes only bite to threaten and no venom is injected by snakes. A rattlesnake is an example of this type, as it is a shy snake. Rattlesnakes only attack when molested. The same is done by Indian cobras.

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