Alright, take the credit – you know quite a lot about snakes, they are among the reptiles, are cold-blooded and sneakily venomous and dangerous animals. Let’s take it a bit further, you presumably also know that the legless and elongated creature are serious meat eaters, that they are carnivores, and fond of crawling out in the sun to raise their body temperature.
More to that, it is a common knowledge that snakes are somewhat foolishly optimistic and naive when it comes to feeding. Owing to the fact that their jaws are very must elastic, they have sustained a liking for biting more they can chew, literally. The swallow prey much bigger than they are, only to become dormant and their physical functions slowed down or suspended for a period of time until digestion is fully effected.
It is also known that while some snakes swallow their prey alive, others kill by constriction as the rest injects venom into their prey, killing before feeding on them. While there are a thousand and one other things known about the carnivorous reptiles, let’s take a look at the lesser-known snake facts you probably haven’t heard of.
5 Lesser-known Snake Facts
1. St. Patrick Banished All Snakes From Ireland, Did He?
As you wouldn’t find snakes in Ireland, people have come to believe that the introduction of Christianity in the North Atlantic island is responsible for this. As the ancient tale goes, St. Patrick had 40 days fasting in a cliff at the island. It is said that during this time, St. Patrick for some reasons, banished all the snakes around into the sea.
Well, while many would love to hold on to this legend, there are reasons to believe that the Saint had nothing to do with the absence of snakes on the island. In fact, it is said that there were no snakes in Ireland in the first place and, that this has been so since 461 AD.
While there are over 2,900 species of snakes that have made mountains, deserts, forests and water their home across the globe, there are snakeless places on earth and Ireland happens to be one of those places.
Other places you wouldn’t find snakes are Iceland, the island of New Zealand and several other islands of central Pacific oceans and the Atlantic. There are no snakes in Greenland, the Hawaiian archipelago and the Antarctica continent at large. This is so because the legless animals are cold-blooded and cannot survive anywhere that the ground has an affection for staying frozen.
2. Male Snakes Have Two Penises
We told you, this piece is about the snake facts you most likely haven’t heard of. Male snakes have two penises and they are called hemipenes, both of them. If you want to refer to only one of the penises, “hemipenis” is the term. Now you wondering how the penises function huh? Well, each of the penes works with a single testis. That way, the snake ejaculates the sperm coming from the left testis through the left penis and that from the right testis through the right penis.
Nope, they can’t use both penes at once, it’s one at a time. Why are they having two penises then? You’ll find the answer in fact no. 3. Meanwhile, you can check out this piece for the opinion of scientists if you really want to wrap your head around why snakes get two penises and humans only one.
3. It’s Super-difficult For Male Snakes To Become Daddies, Two Penises Give Them A Better Chance
Did you know that female snakes can store sperms for more than five years? They are totally in control of who they want to become the father of their babies and, are always looking out for the sperms they believe are of the best quality. Those are the ones they fertilize their eggs with any time they think it’s right to get pregnant.
Essentially, a she-snake would have a bang with several or many he-snakes and store-up their sperms for when she’s ready to have babies. When the time is right for her, she would pick the sperm she believes is best for her, and work with it.
Because of this, many male snakes don’t stand a chance to father babies as their sperms are steadily ignored. To stand a better chance, they have to make sure the sperms they are depositing anytime they cuddle-up with their female buddies are top-notch.
It is thought that there is no better way to always ensure the dishing-out of fresh quality sperm than having two penises. They get to use Penis 1 for She-snake A now and Penis 2 for She-snake B moments later and stand a better chance of being a father.
4. Snake Scales Are Like The Human Fingernails and Hairs
Let’s just say snakes and human have a handful of things in common irrespective of the fact that they are often regarded as mortal enemies. For instance, humans do shed their skin just like snakes do when they have outgrown it. Interestingly, it has been proven that snake scales, the human fingernails, and hairs are all from the same source – Keratin.
The reptiles kindof go blind when they are set to let go of their old skin. This is because they have in place of eyelids, spectacle scales. For a new skin, snakes would crawl around rough surfaces to let loose of the old skin near the mouth from which it will let itself out.
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5. Some Snakes Are Really Smart, They Fake Their Death When They Smell Trouble
This is typical of Spitting Cobras, Grass snakes and the Hognose. Sometimes, when they encounter trouble and feel threatened without trusting their instincts to make an escape, they resort to pretending they are dead.
It has been severally observed that they would twist around or face their bellies to the sky, leave their mouths open with their tongues dragged out, and release from their anal gland some smelly substance which would convince the predator that they are long dead and decaying.
Though this works for the snakes most times when the threat is coming from other animals, it only guarantees their death if humans are the ones involved. Normally, humans would smack any snake lying around in the head even if it is seemingly dead for an obvious reason – making sure the reptile is properly dead. As snakes are generally known for retaining reflexes after death, a dead snake can still kill.
