Form and function
The most characteristic aspect of the snake form is the elongate body and tail and the absence of limbs. There is no snake in which the limb remnants still retain a function in locomotion, but complete or reduced elements of the pelvis and femur remain in many snake families, including the boa and python families. The body is usually slender, although there are some comparatively short and thick-bodied species. The body shape is correlated with activity level, with the slender species moving about all the time and the heavy forms leading a sedentary life. The pit vipers, for example, while not always long, are often big. It seems likely that these snakes evolved in the direction of heaviness only after the development of a heat-sensitive depression, the loreal pit, located between the eye and the nostril, and the venom apparatus, which enabled them to stay in one place and wait for their prey, rather than engaging in a continuous active search for food. Similarly, some of the largest nonvenomous snakes (boas, anacondas, and pythons) have labial pits that function in the same way as the loreal pit of the vipers, so they too can be sedentary and grow fat. Arboreal snakes are the most elongated and slender of all, with the tail (the region posterior to the anus) approaching half the length of the entire body. The body is often strongly compressed laterally, which permits greater rigidity of the body frame while crawling from branch to branch. Burrowing (fossorial) snakes are seldom large, and the true burrowers, the Typhlopidae and Leptotyphlopidae, living all their lives like earthworms, are the tiniest snakes of all. The burrowers have almost no tail, although some of them retain a spiny tail tip, which probably serves the animal as an anchoring point when crawling through the soil. The tail of sea snakes is flattened to form an oar, used to scull through the water. Sea snakes are almost totally helpless on land, locomoting only with the utmost difficulty.
The vertebral column of snakes is highly elongated and has more vertebrae than any other living animal—up to 600 in the Australian python (Morelia oenpelliensis). Since there are no limb girdles associated with the skeleton, there are no good delimiters of regions, but snakes are generally regarded as having only two kinds of vertebrae: body (precaudal) and tail (caudal). There are 100–450 vertebrae in the body and 10–205 vertebrae in the tail. A pair of ribs is associated with each body vertebra except for a few immediately behind the head. By definition, there are no ribs on the tail vertebrae. Each vertebra articulates with its neighbour at five different points: first, at the contact point between the main, central bodies of the bones (centra), which is a ball-and-socket joint; then at two projections (prezygapophyses and postzygapophyses) from the centra, with articulating surfaces that lie above and below; and finally the zygosphenes and zygantra, found almost exclusively in snakes, the zygosphene being a projecting shelf on the upper part of the vertebra and the zygantrum being a pocket into which the zygosphene fits and within which it can swivel. These five points permit lateral and vertical rotation while preventing almost entirely any twisting of the vertebral column, thus achieving both flexibility and rigidity. The vertebra may bear on its ventral surface a long posteriorly directed projection called a hypapophysis. The presence or absence of this structure on the vertebrae of the posterior third of the body has been of considerable importance in snake classification because large groups of species show this as a common characteristic. In the egg-eating snakes (subfamily Dasypeltinae), the hypapophyses of a series of vertebrae a short distance behind the head have developed anteriorly directed tips that have a distinct coating of an enamel-like substance. These serve as eggshell breakers, projecting through a gap in the dorsal intestinal wall, where they can rip into a swallowed egg when the snake constricts the muscles of the body. The crushed shell is regurgitated, and the contents of the egg pass on to the stomach. The vertebrae of the tail tip in the rattlesnake are highly modified to form a “shaker” for the hollow rattle segments.
Snakes are covered with scales, which are cornified folds in the epidermal layers of the skin. These scales are usually arranged in rows along the body, the numbers and arrangement of which are characteristic of the species. The scales may be large and shield-shaped, in which case the number of rows is low (from 10 to 30), or they may be very small, rounded, and occasionally with the centre raised, in which case the number of rows can be as high as 180. A single scale may be very smooth and shiny (as in the rainbow snakes), have a raised ridge (keel) along its centre, be heavily striated, or even have a raised spine in the centre, as in the Javanese wart snake. The scales in some species have sensory structures on the posterior margins called apical pits, and all scales have various micro-ornamentations, consisting of hairlike projections, holes, spinules (small spines), and other specializations visible only through an electron microscope. The scales on the ventral surface of the body are modified into broad plates in the majority of species and are used in locomotion. The ventral scales of sea snakes (Hydrophiinae), worm snakes, and blind snakes are small, as on the dorsal surface, and there are several other species, including boas and pythons, that have partly enlarged ventral scales.
The colours and colour patterns seen in snakes are often bright and occasionally spectacular. Snake colours are produced in two ways, either by pigment deposited in the skin or by differential diffraction of light as a consequence of the physical properties of the skin itself. When seen on a unicolour or uniform background, most snakes are obvious, and their colour patterns seem bold and prominent. When the animals are placed in their natural habitat, however, the significance of the colour patterns becomes obvious. The many lines running at sharp angles to the elongated lines of the body, the triangles or rectangles of colour, the blotches, spots, bands, or lozenges—all become highly disruptive to the eye, and the snake disappears into its surroundings. Blotched or spotted snakes tend to be sedentary and heavy-bodied, while striped and the occasional unicolour snakes are usually active species. In both cases, the coloration is protective, since a coiled sedentary snake has its body outline completely obscured by the overlapping patterns, while the stripes on a crawling snake eliminate the sensation of motion until they suddenly narrow at the tip of the tail and the snake disappears.
Although in most snakes the colours are such that they help the animal to hide, there are some species that seem to be advertising their presence rather than trying to hide it. Their patterns are aposematic, or warning, in nature, and they let a possible enemy or predator know that it runs some risk in an encounter with the snake. The warning is effective, of course, only if the intruder is knowledgeable concerning its significance and can take heed. This implies a teaching and learning sequence, with the dangerous snake as “teacher” and the predator as “student.” For this reason, it has been suggested that the bright colours of the highly (and often fatally) venomous coral snakes did not evolve as warnings of the snakes’ own toxins but as mimics of some other venomous species, less dangerous but still able to teach the predator the significance of the warning coloration. There is no evidence that avoidance of aposematic species is instinctive; on the contrary, naive predators readily attempt to take aposematic forms. A predator that dies in its first encounter with a dangerous species cannot act as a selective force favouring the coloration of that species. There are quite a few mildly venomous rear-fanged snakes, brightly banded in red, black, and yellow (colours found in the coral snakes), that can make a predator suffer a sufficiently painful lesson that it will avoid contact with all similarly coloured snakes, including the fatally venomous coral snakes and the completely harmless milk snakes (Lampropeltis) and scarlet snake. (For a complete discussion of the evolution of mimicry, see mimicry: The evolution of mimicry.)
Skull and sense organs
Snakes rely on several senses to inform them of their surroundings. The pits, found in the region between the nostril and the eye in the pit vipers (the viperid subfamily Crotalinae) and in the scales of the lip line in some boas and pythons, are sensitive to very slight changes in temperature. These snakes feed almost exclusively on animals, such as birds and mammals, that maintain a constant body temperature and can therefore be located by the snake through the reception of the heat of the warm body. The heat lost by even a small rodent is sufficient to alert a waiting viper and enable it to direct a fast strike at the animal as it passes by. Death follows rapidly, and the snake follows the dying animal at a leisurely pace, perhaps in full awareness that it will not go far. The boids use the same technique for detecting warm prey, but after striking they retain the grip, killing by constriction.
The eye of the snake is lidless and covered by a transparent cap of epidermis, which is shed with the rest of the skin at each molt. Animals active during the day usually have round pupils, while the nocturnal species have a vertical or slit pupil that opens up in the dark, as does that of a cat, but closes more effectively in bright light, protecting the sensitive, dark-adapted retina. The eye has been almost completely lost in the burrowing families, in which it is visible only as a black spot and may be covered with a scale or flesh. Arboreal snakes often have a bulging, laterally placed eye, which permits them to see activities directly below as well as above and around them. The structure of the eye in snakes indicates that their lizard ancestor was probably a burrower and that all aboveground activity by snakes is a secondary invasion from an ancestral life underground.
The reception of sound is entirely by bone conduction within the skull. The snake has no external ear, but it still retains a few vestiges of the internal ear, which are connected to other skull bones in such a way as to permit transmission of some earth-borne, and perhaps a few aerial, sound waves of low frequency.
The skull of snakes is characterized by mobility. It is light, with a reduced number of bones, and there are hinge joints at several levels that permit slight rotation or movement of one segment upon another. The only compact unit is the central braincase, with all other skull bones little more than attachments held in place by ligaments and muscles. In most snakes, the six bones of the upper jaw (left and right of the maxilla, palatine, and pterygoid) can move forward and back as well as sideways. The flexibility of the skull and the jawbones attached to it is a major compensation for the loss of limbs and allows a snake to swallow prey that is several times the diameter of its head.
To swallow prey, the skulls of snakes move in a variety of ways, ranging from a lizardlike “inertial-feeding” mode, whereby the upper and lower jaws are both engaged forward over the prey items, to a “walk feeding,” whereby each of the four jaw arches moves independently of the others. Inertial feeding is found in the primitive blind snakes and thread snakes (infraorder Scolecophidia). In shieldtail snakes and their relatives (superfamily Anilioidea), a solid skull and limited movement of the jawbones allow “snout-shifting,” where one entire side of the head is moved forward in relation to the other side, which clamps the prey. Boas and pythons (superfamily Booidea) are more advanced and utilize a “walk-feeding” method in which one jaw arch is disengaged and moved forward, while the three other arches hold fast. The “walk” progresses by moving the jaw arches in order: upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right, and so on.
In most snakes, the upper jaw is connected to the lower jaw by a joint that acts as a pivot point, and, when eating, all toothed bones on one side of the mouth move forward as a unit. In the slug- and snail-eating snakes (the colubrid subfamilies Dipsadinae and Pareatinae), the connection between the upper jaw and the quadrate is lost, and there are four independent units rather than two. This jaw modification permits them to hold their food with three jaws while the fourth is advanced. The maxillary bone (the main bone of the upper jaw) of most snakes is elongated, with many teeth, but, in the Viperidae (Old World vipers, New World rattlesnakes, and other pit vipers), only one functional fang remains, on a short, blunt, rotatable maxillary. The position usually occupied by the maxillary has been taken by the pterygoid bone. In the Elapidae (cobras and relatives), the maxillary bears a single fang in a fixed position, sometimes followed by a few smaller, solid teeth. In several different evolutionary lines of snakes, the posterior one or two teeth on the maxillary have enlarged and changed, usually in the direction of developing a groove or canal on the anterior edge to conduct a flow of venom. These are the rear-fanged snakes, usually (although not always) nonlethal to man.
Snake teeth are usually long, slightly recurved, and needle-sharp. This facilitates swallowing and prevents loss of food, because the only direction in which a food item, which may be alive when swallowed, can go to escape the teeth is down the throat. Modifications in food habits have often been accompanied by changes in tooth structure or the loss of teeth. The egg-eating snakes, for example, have only a few peglike teeth left. The burrowing blind snakes have very reduced dentition and often have lost the teeth of one jaw entirely.
The urogenital system in snakes is not very distinctive from that of other vertebrates. The testes and ovaries tend to be staggered as a consequence of the elongation of the body, with the right usually lying anterior to the left. Snakes do not have a urinary bladder, and kidney wastes are excreted in a solid state as uric acid. As mentioned in the section Mating, the male snake has two separate intromittent organs, the hemipenes. This structure is not homologous with the penis of mammals but seems to represent a completely different solution to the problem of internal fertilization. It is a saclike structure that must be turned inside out to be inserted in the cloaca of the female and can be removed only by turning it back inside, because to draw it out directly would damage the female considerably. The hemipenis is extremely variable in its overall appearance and structure; the cloaca of the female is often similarly constructed, which thus prevents cross-fertilization by males of related species.
Specializations for securing food
The most essential and time-consuming activity for a snake during nondormant periods, regardless of its habitat, is the pursuit, capture, and digestion of food. Most snakes consume one prey item and then rest before eating again. There are many morphological and behavioral modifications to be observed in snakes that facilitate food gathering. Some of these changes are widespread and found in practically every kind of snake. Jacobson’s organ, for example, is located in the roof of the mouth and is capable of detecting minute quantities of various chemical substances when they are picked up externally on the delicate double-tipped tongue and thrust into the organ for analysis. It is so significant and useful that it has never been lost by any snake species. While important primarily in trailing and recognition of prey, the Jacobson’s organ is also used in detection of enemies, in trailing other snakes of the same species, and in courtship.
Some snakes have specialized salivary glands that elaborate a potent venom, along with either grooved or tubular teeth to permit internal injection of the venom. This device for rapid immobilization of prey has proved successful whenever it has occurred, and several different lines of evolution can be detected both in the type of injector tooth and in the chemical composition or mode of action of the venoms. The types of injector tooth include the long tubular fang of the viperids, the short hollow fang on a fixed maxillary seen in the elapids, and the several kinds of grooved tooth on the posterior end of the maxillary. In the latter case, there is little doubt but that the development of grooving has taken place several different times in different places. As for the venom, it is true that the terms neurotoxic, hemotoxic, and cardiotoxic, once used to describe the different effects, are clearly misleading and are too simple for accurate statements concerning venom composition. Nevertheless, it is still accurate to say that some components of venom cause changes in red blood cells, coagulation defects, and blood-vessel injury, while others produce deleterious changes in sensory and motor functions and in respiration, and still others have a direct effect on the heart. Some venom kills very rapidly, such as that of the golden fer-de-lance (Bothrops insularis) of Queimada Island, off the Brazilian coast, which would lose as prey most of the birds it bites if they could fly very far away. Other venoms kill more slowly, and the snake bites, retires, and waits, finally trailing the bitten prey, using the tongue and the Jacobson’s organ until it finds the already stiffening body. Some snakes, in particular the rear-fanged species, bite, chew, and hold on, eventually bringing the hindmost maxillary teeth into play, which permits the injection of toxin.
Other feeding specializations are not so widespread among species, and some are restricted to a single group. Nearly all boids and many colubrids utilize a constriction method for killing their food. The prey is struck and held by the teeth, and a series of body coils are rapidly thrown around it. These coils tighten until respiration is impossible and suffocation results, but very seldom are bones crushed or broken. The snail-eating snakes have a series of modifications of the teeth, the toothed bones, and the lower jaw that permit insertion of the lower jaw into a shell to pull out the snail’s body. One genus of sea snakes, Microcephalophis, has a tiny head and a long neck with the same diameter as the head, which can be inserted deeply into very narrow holes inhabited by its prey. An Asian water snake, Erpeton tentaculatus, has a sizable pair of tentacles on its snout, the purpose of which is uncertain. There is a great correlation between the difficulty in catching a particular kind of prey and the development of morphological and behavioral devices to help solve the problem. The blind snake living in a termite nest needs no more than its tongue and Jacobson’s organ to permit it to recognize the soft-bodied, defenseless termites, so its eyes and most of its teeth have been lost. But the rattlesnake, seeking the most elusive prey of all in agile, aware, and sensorially acute small mammals, has a full armament of equipment, including the facial pit, the venom gland, the rotatable maxillary bone, the tubular fang, and two functional eyes.