When people think of snakes, they don’t think good things but they’re none the less remarkable. Snakes are the only higher order creature who doesn’t walk the Earth. They prefer to slither. Even insects have legs and really once you’ve had legs why would you go back? However most evidence (fossil and structural) seems to indicate that at one time serpents did indeed have them. Now was it God in Genesis who did away with their limbs or did they just not have very good ones and quit using them until they became vestigial.
But the number one thing people know about serpents is that they’re poisonous. When in reality only a quarter of them are. Then again if you see one, are you going to take the time to check it out, or are you going to vacate the premises? Is this protection, or instead a detriment, for the 75% percent of snakes who are nonpoisonous? Probably a little of both as there are those who will run and those who will kill any snake they chance upon. Ascribing to the shoot now, ask questions later school of action.
Estimates of how many people die of snakebites every year vary from around 20 to a 100 thousand. The most poisonous of these is the Belcher’s Sea Snake who is easily spotted swimming in the ocean with their black and white stripes. And even though only some sea snakes are poisonous, and are fairly docile unless provoked, don’t take them out of the water, they just don’t like it and neither will you. Anyway it’s always best, when entering the underwater realm, to leave it untouched, and in the long run you’ll be happier.
Now the leave them alone rule, applies to snakes in general. Some however are just bad assess. The Black Mamba, out of Africa, is numero uno on this list and can reach fourteen ferocious feet in length. He is followed by the Carpet Viper, also out of Africa and the Middle East, who at only two feet, has a Napoleon complex and so is responsible for more deaths than the Mamba. In South America the Fer-de-Lance is the best known hothead.
The most aggressive snake in Asia is the King Cobra and because of this, India has one of the highest fatality rates from snakebites in the world. Australia has many (way too many) species of venomous snakes with the Eastern Brown Snake being responsible for the most deaths. Luckily there are very few people, if any, who die from snakebites in North America, Europe and Australia. On average in the U.S. 6 people die from snake bites each year, whereas 20 people are killed by non-venomous cows. And constrictors like the Boa don’t even need poison to overcome their prey they just crush the life out of them.
But now it’s time to focus on something snakes do which benefits mankind. Snakes keep the rodent population under control. Kill all the snakes and rodents will eat all the grain. Then you in turn will starve. So how do snakes eat the bigger rodents? They can open their mouths (with the help of an extra bone and really stretchy skin) and eat things bigger than their own head. Try eating a basketball in one bite. Now imagine the ball is lashing out at you with tiny sharp basketball hands. To help with this process of eating an often still alive and thrashing rat, the serpent’s brain is encased in bone on all sides.
One final fact or potentially scary thought. Using their scales snakes can climb trees and other objects. So you not only have to worry about stepping on one, as I almost did to a five foot copperhead (OK, OK, one foot) at summer camp, but also death from above. Remember to let them be and you will be fine, and there will be a lot fewer rats about. Except in Washington.