Amazing and Interesting Facts about Snakes

Here are some funny, interesting and amazing facts about snakes

• According to ancient Chinese wisdom, a snake in the house is a good omen because it means your family will not starve.
• In March 2006, a Malaysian set a world record by kissing a venomous snake 51 times in three minutes.
• In 2008, a man in Connecticut was arrested for ordering his pet python to attack two policemen.
• The island of Komodo, Indonesia, contains more poisonous snakes per square metre than any equivalent area on Earth.
• The mortality rate if bitten by a Black Mamba snake is over 95 per cent.
• Snake Alley in Burlington, Iowa, is reputed to be the most crooked road in the world.
• Since 1980, 45 people have died of snakebite in Australia.
• In 2008, a snake in Australia that swallowed four golf balls thinking they were chicken eggs was saved by emergency surgery.
• The longest pet in the UK is thought to be a 17ft albino python living in a house in Cambridgeshire.
• Rattlesnakes cause about 82 per cent of all snakebite deaths in North America. Rattlesnake is said to taste like chicken, only tough
• Snakes are carnivores (meat eaters).
• Snakes don’t have eyelids.
• Snakes can’t bite food so have to swallow it whole.
• Snakes have flexible jaws which allow them to eat prey bigger than their head!
• Snakes are found on every continent of the world except Antarctica.
• Snakes have internal ears but not external ones.
• Snakes used in snake charming performances respond to movement, not sound.
• There are around 3000 different species of snake.
• Snakes have a unique anatomy which allows them to swallow and digest large prey.
• Snakes are covered in scales.
• Snakeskin is smooth and dry.
• Snakes shed their skin a number of times a year in a process that usually lasts a few days.
• Some species of snake, such as cobras and black mambas, use venom to hunt and kill their prey. Read more venomous snake facts.
• Snakes smell with their tongue.
• Pythons kill their prey by tightly wrapping around it and suffocating it in a process called constriction.
• Some sea snakes can breathe partially through their skin, allowing for longer dives underwater.
• Anacondas are large, non-venomous snakes found in South America that can reach over 5 m (16 ft) in length.
• Python reticulates can grow over 8.7 m (28 ft) in length and are considered the longest snakes in the world.

Interesting Facts about Snakes

1- There are over 3000 kinds of snake in the world.

2- Snakes have poor eyesight, and so have heat censors that can pick up vibrations.

3- One species of fer-DE-lance, a deadly viper, has been recorded swallowing prey that was 1.6 times its own body weight.

  4- Snakes hear through their jaws. 

  5- Snakes rely on the heat of the sun to control their body temperature.  

  6- Black Mamba is the world most poisonous snake.

7-Black Mamba could kill 100 people with a single bite.

8- Snakes can sleep for three years without eating.

9- Spitting cobras actually spray their venom from their fangs, with quick muscular contractions that can send their toxin up to three meters away. Worse still, they'll be aiming at your eyes when they do it.

  10- The paradise tree-snake of South-east Asia can 'fly' through the air by flattening its body into an s-shaped ribbon.

11- Many snakes are only too happy to gobble each other up. Some, such as the ravenous California King-snake, like nothing more than to feast upon others of their own species.

12- The venom of a cobra could kill an elephant.

13- The swiftest snake on land is the Black Mamba, a notorious African monster that can reach speeds of up to 12 miles per hour. And they're amongst the most deadly too. 

14- Baby snakes are often more dangerous than their parents. While adults carefully ration out their venom, a baby snake lacks such self-control and will unleash a much higher dose of venom in its bite. 

15- A dead rattlesnake can still bite if you get too close. The snake's heat sensors remain active until rigor mortise is complete, a day or more later. Placing a warm object, such as your hand, near the snake's mouth will still cause it to have a go!