Peek!

Photo Source: National Geographic Photo Gallery
Photographer: Sam Abell 

DID YOU KNOW...

• Snake’s scales are made up of something called Keratin, which is the same thing that our fingernails are made from.
• Mother Pythons will coil themselves around their eggs and make their bodies shiver in order to heat herself up and keep her eggs warm until they hatch.
• The biggest snake is the Reticulated Python.  It can grow up to 10.05 meters or 33 feet long!
• The thickest snake is the Anaconda.  The biggest one found measured 111 centimeters or 44 inches around.  That's huge!
• The Thread snake is the smallest snake.  It is only about 10 centimeters (4 inches long) and the size of a toothpick.
• Vine snakes are remarkable because they appear to have binocular vision.
• Many Zookeepers believe that Cobras are faster learners than other snakes.  They are able to tell the difference between their trainer and strangers.
• The ancient Greek god, Asklepios, was thought to be a healer of the sick and injured.  People would take an offering to the temple and wait for Asklepios to, either come to them in their dreams or send his servants, the snake, to help them. One touch of the forked tongue was all they thought they needed to heal them.  The healing snake was the Aesculapian snake.  The Romans would bring this snake into their temples rather than the Greek healers.  To this day the Aesculapian snake forms part of the symbols representing physicians and veterinarians.
• This would be funny to watch! The Hognose, Grass snake and the Spitting Cobra will fake death when feeling threatened.  They flip into their backs, open their mouths, and let their tongue flop out.  And they will let out some smelly stuff from their anal gland. Nobody would want to eat it after that!
• A reticulated python, named Colossus, was the largest snake that ever lived in a zoo.  She lived at the Pittsburgh Zoo in Pennsylvania. Clifford Pope, the author of a book entitled “The Giant Snakes” reported that she was 22 feet long when she was captured in what is now Thailand in 1949. Eight years later she grew to 8.69 m (28 ½ feet) long.  Her body was 69 cm (37 ½ inches) around and her weight was around 145 kg (320 pounds).
  

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