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Snakes have a wide diversity of skin coloration patterns which are often related to behavior, such as the tendency to have to flee from predators. Snakes that are at a high risk of predation tend to be plain, or have longitudinal stripes, providing few reference points to predators, thus allowing the snake to escape without being noticed.
The skull of Python reticulatus.. The skull of a snake is a very complex structure, with numerous joints to allow the snake to swallow prey far larger than its head.. The typical snake skull has a solidly ossified braincase, with the separate frontal bones and the united parietal bones extending downward to the basisphenoid, which is large and extends forward into a rostrum extending to the ...
Snakes, like other reptiles, have skin covered in scales. [1] Snakes are entirely covered with scales or scutes of various shapes and sizes, known as snakeskin as a whole. A scale protects the body of the snake, aids it in locomotion, allows moisture to be retained within, alters the surface characteristics such as roughness to aid in ...
A nail is a protective plate characteristically found at the tip of the digits (fingers and toes) of all primates, corresponding to the claws in other tetrapod animals. . Fingernails and toenails are made of a tough rigid protein called alpha-keratin, a polymer also found in the claws, hooves, and horns of ver
Reptiles, from Nouveau Larousse Illustré, 1897–1904, notice the inclusion of amphibians (below the crocodiles). In the 13th century, the category of reptile was recognized in Europe as consisting of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, lizards, assorted amphibians, and worms", as recorded by Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature. [7]
Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago. The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene epoch ( c. 66 to 56 Ma ago, after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event ).
Digitigrade and unguligrade animals have relatively long carpals and tarsals, and the bones which correspond to the human ankle are thus set much higher in the limb than in a human. In a digitigrade animal, this effectively lengthens the foot, so much so that what are often thought of as a digitigrade animal's "hands" and "feet" correspond to ...
Snakes that have just eaten are more likely to strike a predator or stimulus than snakes that do not have a full stomach. Snakes that have just eaten a large animal are less mobile. [19] Another factor that controls the antipredatory response of the garter snake is where on its body the snake is attacked.