#snake families

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

whats the difference between a viper and python ?

Important question, thank you for asking! Those are two of the major snake families; I know you only asked about two, but I'll discuss the big ones!

Pythons are a family of non-venomous constrictors. They're primitive snakes, meaning they have less stretchy skulls than modern families and they still have the vestigial remnants of a pelvic girdle. Pythons all have heat pits (except for the two members of the genus Aspidites) and those pits are set into the scales on their lips. Ball pythons, Burmese pythons, and rock pythons are all examples of snakes in the python family!

Boas are also non-venomous, primitive constrictors, and are closely related to pythons. They're distinguished, though, by having a couple fewer bones in their skulls and less teeth. When they have heat pits, they're between the scales instead of in them, and they're generally ovoviviparous and give live birth instead of laying eggs. Boa constrictors, anacondas, and rainbow boas are examples of this family!

Vipers are modern, venomous snakes. They have fewer bones in their skulls and less teeth than boas and pythons, and they lack vestigial pelvic girdles. Vipers tend to have primarily hemotoxic venom, and they're often heavy-bodied. When they have heat pits, they're located on their cheeks. Their fangs are hinged and swing out. Rattlesnakes, tree vipers, sand vipers, and copperheads are all members of the viper family!

Elapids are modern, venomous snakes who tend to have primarily neurotoxic venom. They tend to be diurnal and more slender than vipers, and lack heat pits. Their fangs are always set into position. Cobras, mambas, and sea snakes are members of the elapid family!

Colubrids are a large family of modern snakes. Most colubrids are non-venomous, and those who aren't are rear-fanged venomous, with a less sophisticated venom delivery system than elapids and vipers. They're a very diverse family of snakes! Hognose snakes, garter snakes, watersnakes, and ratsnakes are examples of colubrids!

There are other snake families, but those five are the really big ones. Understanding the differences means you also understand a lot of the commonalities and distinctions between common snakes!

[scoriarose]

A baby rattle snake following its mommy ❤️

Definitions of parental behavior differ, but Shine points out that mother snakes seem to go to some trouble for their offspring. For instance, python moms will often stay coiled around their pile of eggs for about 2 months, even though they haven’t had anything to eat for 6 or 7 months. At first glance, it might seem hopeless for a cold-blooded animal to try to incubate its eggs. When the temperature drops sufficiently, though, the python shivers, thereby warming the clutch with heat derived from muscle activity. Many rattlesnakes and their pit viper cousins don’t lay eggs but instead give birth to ready-to-wriggle offspring. Back in the Chiricahua foothills of Arizona, the black-tailed rattler mother that so excited Hardy and Greene stayed near her youngsters and the sheltering rocks of the birth site for more than 9 days. The scenes that the researchers described in 2002 might apply as well to a mother dog and her pups. On day 4 after the birth, Hardy observed superfemale 21 near the birth site as five of her newborns crawled around. They had worked their way out of the shelter’s entrance, over the mother’s body, and a little way into the surrounding grass. An hour later, several youngsters had piled on top of her. When one wriggled over her head, she tolerantly rearranged her coils. Thus, the days went by with the family basking just outside its rocky den. About 9 days after birth, the little snakes shed their skins as their mother watched from a few inches away. The youngsters then disappeared, presumably crawling off on their own. Greene and Hardy’s detailed monitoring of black-tailed rattler life had convinced them that the females typically don’t eat during winter hibernation or the spring pregnancies that follow. Greene paints a heroic picture of the mother, who further delays her return to hunting. “She hasn’t eaten for about 10 months, but she stays around for 10 more days,” he says. He and Hardy have since observed similar behavior in several females.

Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/social-lives-snakes

[rekkabo]

Yotsuba pose thing with jupiter family! :]

[incorrectbatfam]

Batkids being caught bringing something back to the Wayne that goes against Bruce or Alfred's rules? What did they bring?

Bruce: *goes downstairs for a late night snack*

Bruce: *opens the fridge*

Bruce: Holy f— EVERYONE GET DOWN HERE, RIGHT NOW!

Jason: It's ass o'clock, what do you want?

Bruce: *turns around holding a rattlesnake*

Bruce: I want answers.

Steph: That's probably Damian's.

Damian: Well, Brown, you'd be surprised to hear that it is not.

Steph: Really? Because you brought a yak from your Mongolia mission.

Bruce: You did what?

Damian: Bat-Cow needed a bovine companion. Besides, it's not like I have a SECOND duffel bag of heads upstairs, unlike some people.

Jason: They're my backup heads! At least I didn't buy a $5,000 meat smoker like Blondie over here.

Steph: I deserve nice things and I'm not ashamed.

Tim, walking in: Guys, what's going on? I was just about to fall asleep.

Bruce, holding out the snake: Do you know anything about this?

Tim: Uh, no. I'm not a big amphibians guy.

Damian: Snakes are reptiles, you shaved cactus.

Tim: You got a snake?

Damian: It's not mine!

Bruce: Any idea whose this might be?

Tim: Maybe Dick? Yesterday he ordered a big top tent on eBay. I wouldn't be surprised if he got some circus animals to go with it.

Dick, from upstairs: Are you spying on my computer?!?

Tim: I spy on everyone's computers. You're not special.

Bruce: This isn't getting anywhere.

Jason: Did you ask Cass? She's been digging a bunch of holes trying to bury the cursed amulet she found. Who knows what else she's hiding.

Tim: She doesn't have enough left in her bank account to buy a snake, though.

Steph: What's with you spying on everyone's computers?

Damian: He times his online purchases when Father and Barbara are preoccupied. How else would he have that box of kryptonite?

Tim: Snitch.

Dick, from the stairs: Like you're any better.

The kids: *start arguing*

Bruce: *puts the snake in a tank*

Bruce: I'm going to bed. Let me know in the morning how this plays out.

The kids: *still arguing*

Duke: *walks right past them with a vending machine for his room*

[shmepoe]

Jupiter family comic of some sort

[swordofhearts]

"i think we might be lost..." otasune (+ raiden and sunny) road trip!!

[frogmansides]

snamily (snake family)

[puphound]

everyone add me on animal jam classic my username is wolfpaw9087

[taffycatart]

You wouldn't let me suffer Sunny's eggs alone, would you?

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Do you want to share about the smaller snake families too? I'd love to hear about them

There's a lot of snake familes - twenty something, give or take, depending on who you ask - but I'll do my best to give you a brief rundown of the ones accepted as unique families by most herpetologists! Quite a few of the smaller families only have a couple or even a single member.

This is gonna be long, so I'm putting this under a read more! Click if you want to see a bunch of weird snakes I can guarantee most people have never even heard of.

We split snake families into two infraorders. First, the Alethinophidia, where most families go other than a few little weirdos we'll discuss later. Boas, pythons, vipers, elapids, and colubrids all go in here, too!

Aniliidae - the family of one little guy, Anilius scytale. It's an extremely primitive snake with smaller belly scales and a very rigid skull.

Acrochordidae - the wart snakes! This is the family of three weirdo aquatic snakes. They're primitive and have loose, baggy skin which they use to trap fish. Elaphant trunk snakes are the most well-known acrochordids.

Atractaspididae - my favorite lesser-known family, the mole vipers, also called stiletto snakes and burrowing asps! They're the last family (outside of vipers and elapids) who are always venomous, and they have totally unique fangs they can swing out to stick prey! They're a bigger family, with twelve genera.

Bolyeriidae - the Round Island boas! There are two, formerly placed in the boa family but seperated due to genetic research. They're pretty big burrowers and have adorable, long faces.

Cylindrophiidae - Asian pipe snakes. They're burrowing, highly secretive little snakes, and there are thirteen of them. They're weird in that they don't have well-developed ventral scales.

Anomochilidae - the three dwarf pipe snakes. They're highly fossorial and have stubby faces and bright-colored bands around their tails to trick predators into missing their heads.

Tropidophiidae - the dwarf boas. Fossorial snakes and another of the bigger families, with thirty-four species. They're little cuties, known for pronounced color changes caused by pigment drift - they're light-colored when they're active during the day and dark-colored when they're asleep at night.

Xenopeltidae - the sunbeam snakes. Beautiful, fossorial snakes. They have particularly rigid jaws.

Uropeltidae - the sheild-tailed snakes. These guys are highly fossorial and secretive to the point we just don't know jack about shit. Their weird flattened tails are bizarre and we don't know what is up with that really.

Loxocemidae - a family with a single species, the Mexican burrowing snake. Burrowers, they have a super cool feature - scent glands to keep away nuisance insects while they go about their business.

Pareidae - forty-two species of snail-eaters, they have asymettrical jaws and special teeth that allow them to scoop snails out of their shells!

Xenodermidae - the odd-scaled snakes. Their scales don't overlap, giving them a super unique appearance!

Prosymnidae - related to elapids but shown to be distinct through genetic tests. Insanely cute.

Psammophiidae - in the same boat as prosymnids. When they're venomous, they're typically rear-fanged venomous.

Lamprophiidae - a bigger one, with eighty-nine species! Diverse and related to elapids. African house snakes are here!

Xenophidiidae - spinejaw snakes. They're highly fossorial and have weird-ass skulls but we haven't even found a male specimen yet. Lots to learn about them!

And, now, the second infraorder - the Scolecophidia! These are the families of blind snakes and thread snakes. All of these snakes are typically less than one foot long and usually much smaller.

Typhlopidae - the biggest family of blind snakes, with over two hundred species! Their eyes are mostly vestigial but they have black spots that can detect light, and they have teeth in their upper jaw but their jaws cannot stretch.

Anomalepididae - super similar to typhlopids but they only have a single tooth.

Leptotyphlopidae - these tiny little guys eat termines and ants. They have no true teeth and immobile jaws. The smallest known snake, the Barbados threadsnake, belongs to this family.

If you made it this far, congrats! You now know more about snake families than most undergrad herpetology students.

[bidonicart]

Otasune week @mgsevents Day 2 - Wedding

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them

In my life, I love you more

[picnic-at-dreaming-rock]

realising what I actually need from Suzanne Collins is just a multi-volume panem history book

[cinnamnt]

cooldown sketches from last night :] really trying to get back in the swing of drawing……..

[cupcakeshakesnake]

I drew this almost 2 months ago and just... didn't get around to posting it I guess

[incorrectbatfam]

Damian: I impulsively bought a snake. What do I name him?

Dick: You did WHAT—

Jason: William Snakespeare.

[mcksnn]

emma lives AU teehee