5 Fascinating Facts About Snakes You Probably Didn’t Know

Snake, how do you feel when you hear the term? Fear is the most common answer. Snake is the sleek, most mysterious and maybe misunderstood creature on this planet. There are around 3000 known snake species recorded so far which spread across all the continents except Antarctica. They have amazing adaptability, excellent swimmers, climbers and even a few can glide through the air. This article brings you five surprising facts about snakes and how extraordinary they really are.

Snakes continuously flick their tongue out to collect scent particles of airborne chemicals and when the tongue is brought back inside their mouth through their Jacobson organ, they visualise an entire detailed chemical map of their surroundings. This helps them to track their prey, find mates and scan a territory.

Snakes' jaws and skulls are highly flexible, they can stretch their jaws up to 4 times wider than their head, which helps them to swallow much larger prey than themselves.

The are around 600 venomous species of snake worldwide wide but only 200 of them can seriously harm humans. They are gifted with venom to subdue their prey. Humans studied those venom components and use them for medicines and drugs as painkillers or blood pressure medicines. The amazing capability of human beings to turn a danger into a medical benefit.

Pythons, pit vipers and some boas have a remarkable superpower; they can sense heat with their pit organs. So they can sense the heat of warm-blooded animals such as rodents or birds even in total darkness. It's like a thermal camera, which helps them to accurately strike prey at night.

Another fascinating fact is that some snakes can actually glide through the air like a flying snake. These species mostly live in Southeast Asian forests. They first launch themselves from a tree branch then flatten their bodies into a ribbon like shape and create a wave like motion while they are in air. They this movement to stay aloft and glide up to 100 metres or more.

Some snake like threadsnakes are the smallest in the world with just 10-15 cm long. They can hide under soil, leaf or tree bark and on the opposite end their are giants like green anaconda, the heaviest and longest snake species on Earth. They are the most powerful snakes can grow over 5 metres with weigh more than 200 kg. They live slow moving rivers, swamps or flooded forests of South America.

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