The fact of the normal New Year’s snake

Celebrate the Lunar New Year with the facts of seven snakes

By Alison Partial Dean Visser edits

As the new moon rises this week, the new year will reach the monthly calendar used by many cultures in East Asia and Southeast Asia. In Zodiac, China, 2025 is a snake year in the 12 -year moon cycle. An animal that symbolizes wisdom and changes.

The reptiles of these limbs can be found in all population continents thanks to the evolved “Big Bang” about 125 million years ago. There are more than 3,000 snake species, and there are incredible variations between them. Some animals are smaller than earthworms, while others are longer than pickup trucks. Some are harmless to humans, while others are toxic. And the ecological role that they play important pest controllers and nutrition cycles are often underestimated. So, while we are looking for the next year, we will thank our strange and nasty friends.

Glitter snake

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The movement of the snake signature is slizer. However, they can also settle forward like inch insects, jump or attack from a coil -shaped position. A few years ago, scientists discovered another stranger in snake movement: “Rasso’s movement.” The researchers were testing how to keep the brown snake away from Guam’s bird’s nest. They have a wide metal cylinder at the bottom of the pole, hoping to prevent snakes. This is generally needed to wrap it twice around the pole or wooden trunk to climb by “moving conchenatina” like a normal accordion.

Instead, the team discovered that the snake literally tied himself to the knot and exceeded the barrier. The reptile wrapped the tail only once in the wall, and then hooked the tip around the body. This created a kind of rasso shape that snakes can be used to simmer the pole.

Thermal vision

Python, bore, pit viper, etc. can be hunted in the completely darkness. They feel the animals of their prey not only due to the smell, but also by the heat of the quarry. The so -called pit organ of these snakes allows you to “see” this heat. The organs function like a thermal camera that reptiles can be targeted at home.

The pit organ is covered with a membrane near the snake’s nostrils. Infrared radiation emitted from potential prey heats the membrane, thickens the membrane, and changes the small charge that runs across the outer surface of the membrane. The change in the voltage is passed to nerve cells and information is sent to the brain.

It is wide open

Snakes generally do not bite food. Instead, they swallow the whole prey and digest slowly over a few days. For example, Burma’s Pison can spend a week to digest one meal. They usually eat small mammals such as rodents, but these pythons are found with relatively huge crocodile and deer. They can open their mouth four times the skull.

This impressive feat returns to some elastic skin and tissue. Contrary to general beliefs, snakes do not Hun their jaws to consume large prey. Their lower jaws are actually made in two non -used half, which are actually connected by elastic tissue. This is a design that can burn half of the lower jaw on the side. Burmese pisson can be opened widely for tissue without jaw.

Poisonous ditch

There are more than 3,000 snakes, of which 600 are toxic. These snake tusks are shaped in cold efficiency to deliver the largest toxic to the prey. This adaptation evolved each time with the ridge that fixes the snake teeth on the chin each time. With the poisonous snake, these ridges grew for a long time, and eventually poisoned to the tip of the fangs, and the gaps flowing to the prey.

Double anatomy

Snake external genitals are paired. Men have two penis, and women have two clitoris. In women, these organs have long been mistaken for fragrance glands.

Technically, male organs, called Hemipen, are usually held in the body and are facing inside. During the mating, Hemipen flips outside the body. In some snake species, dual penis is covered with spikes or hooks.

Previous giants

The longest snake seed today is the mesh, which is usually 13 to 16 feet. In rare cases, they can be ranked above 20 or 30 feet.

However, they look small compared to some snake seeds that slipped the earth million years ago. Last year, researchers announced their discovery Vasquin Diss,, A snake 47 million years ago, which extended to estimated 36 to 49 feet. The 27 -shaped vertebralite was found 20 years ago in a coal mine in India’s Gujarat. Initially, researchers assumed that these bones came from a traditional crocodile species.

Estimation of length Vasquiindias, Hindu’s folklore, the snake king Vascaki, will be named for the same way. Titanoboa CERREJONENSIS, Another Titan, 60 million years ago, was found to be fossilized in Colombia.

Python invasion

A few years ago, Florida made it illegal to maintain Burma Python as a pet. This is because these snakes have become an Everglaze aggressive tragedy, which significantly reduced many local individuals in mammals. The population of these Python, native to Southeast Asia, was the descendants of the escaped or released pet. For example, in 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed the Python breeding center, and many snakes appeared in the wild. For the past decade, Florida Fish and Wild Life Service has been holding an annual tournament called Florida Pyson Challenge. Last year’s winners won 20 reptile and $ 10,000 prizes.

Usually, these huge snakes, 6 to 9 feet, are very difficult to find, despite the increase. In Keiralgo, they are hidden in the natural pores of local rocks like Swiss Cheese. Researchers once found a 12 -foot Python according to the GPS color of Oposum, which he was studying. This was a snake dinner.

Everglaze is now a Python territory, but the key of Florida has hope further south. Michael Cob, a research curator of the Oposshal Project Conservation Economic scholar and a research curator of the North Carolina Natural Science Museum, states the key to the key to the invasion front. “Before it is too late, there is still a possibility of management.”