13 Awesome Facts About Snakes

Snakes are fascinating animals – reptiles that have survived thousands of years due to the ability to adapt to different living conditions.

Snakes appeared 130 million years ago, and today there are about 3,000 different species known. Only about 400 species of snake are poisonous, and 50 of these are potentially deadly to humans. Most venomous land snake in the world is Australia’s taipan.

Approximately one third of people in developed countries are afraid of a snakes. When we say someone is afraid of a snake, it does not mean he is afraid because he thinks they’re poisonous and dangerous. That means he can not even think or look of them. Read these 13 scary and awesome facts about snakes…

Fact: Titanoboa was the largest snake in history; it was 13 meters long, weighing 1100 kilograms and lived 60 million years ago. Fossils of this huge snakes were found when excavating a large mine in the northern part of Colombia. It is believed that it is a distant cousin of the anaconda and boa constrictor.

Fact: Snakes have 200 teeth on average. All snakes have teeth, some well developed and some less developed. Poisonous teeth are present only in poisonous snakes (about 10%).

Fact: If you are bitten by a black mamba you will have a 95% chance to die. Black mamba earned the reputation of the deadliest snake due to a very powerful neurotoxic poison and is able to inject it in very large quantities.

Fact: Australian inland taipan (oxyuranus microlepidotus) is the most deadly snake on Earth. A poison of one bite can kill up to 100 people. Lives in desert areas in the interior of Australia in the southeastern Northern Territory, South Australia and West Queensland. After the attack it never retreat but always attacks again and again, so it has been recorded that in one attack the victim was bitten 8 times.

Fact: There are five different types of flying snakes – they hang on the branch, swing and throw in the air, and then expand their numerous ribs and sails. Its talent helps it in hunting rodents, lizards, birds, frogs and other smaller animals to feed. Also, flying from tree to tree (or on any other surface) these snakes escaping from invaders.

Fact: The success of snake attacks is almost always on 99%. The snake attacks the victim from his well-known protective position and with the first instinct.

Fact: There are more than 270 species of cobras in the world, with the king cobra and Indian cobra, the most famous are black-necked spitting cobra, Mozambique cobra, red cobra and rinkhals or ring-necked spitting cobra.

Fact: The snakes’ heart can be moved by one or one and a half of its length from its normal position so that the swallowed prey passes easily.

Fact: The snake bites an estimated 5 million people annually, of which about 125,000 people die. The “Diary of Death”, led by Dr. Karl Patterson Schmidt, details the dying of a person who has been bitten by a poisonous snake. Schimidt died from the bite of young boomslang snakes in 1957, but he did not know that will die. The time between bite and death, and it lasted for a whole day, he spent working on notes of his condition.

Fact: Black mamba is the fastest snake in the world, and can hit a speed of about 25 km/h (15 mph).

Fact: When anakondas mating, in act only one female can participate at the same time with 12 males (you have read it well), they all intertwine, so they resemble a large living ball, and in that formation, all together, they can stay for more than a month.

Fact: The owner of the longest poisonous canines is the so-called Gabon Viper. It inhabits the area of the African state of Gabon, and the canines of these snake can grow up to 5 centimeters. Also it has an extremely slow metabolism, so it can withstand up to eighteen months without feeding.

Fact: In some restaurants in Vietnam, it is possible to order wine made of cobra blood.