A team of scientists has studied the genomes of 14 species from 12 families of snakes to find out what genetic changes happened for reptiles with four limbs and two lungs to change into snakes with no limbs and one lung. The found three parts of a gene called PTCH1 had missing DNA. This gene […]
Velvet black viper revealed in reports in Wired Science 16 May 2013, ABC News in Science 17 May 2013 and Nature Scientific Reports doi:10.1038/srep01846 16 May 2013. The West African Gaboon viper, Bitis rhinoceros, has a distinctive geometrical pattern of black, brown and white patches on its skin. The black patches are a particularly dense […]
Snake slithering explained in articles in ScienceNOW 8 June 2009 and BBC News 9 June 2009. Snakes can propel themselves forward by pushing against objects in their path such as rocks and twigs, but they can also move along smooth surfaces using a slithering movement, known scientifically as “lateral undulation” because it leaves an S-shaped […]
Snake leg loss described in articles in ScienceShots and ScienceDaily 7 February 2011, ABC News in Science and BBC News, 8 Feb 2011, and Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology vol. 31 p2, January 2011. No living snakes have legs but three fossil snakes have been found with tiny back legs. A group of French and German […]
How snakes drink reported in New Scientist 20 February 2012 and Journal of Experimental Zoology 6 February 2012 DOI: 10.1002/jez.1710. David Cundall of Lehigh University, Pennsylvania had observed boa constrictors sucking up water through a small hole in their mouths, as if they were drinking through a straw. However, he was unable to measure any […]
High CO2 made for giant snake based on new fossil find according to reports in EurekAlert and BBC News 4 Feb 2009, and Nature, vol. 457, p715, 5 Feb 2009. A team of scientists led by Jason Head (University of Toronto at Mississauga, Canada), have found fossilised bones of a giant snake in the Cerrejon […]
Snake leg loss genes found, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News 20 October 2016, Current Biology doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.09.020, published online 20 October 2016 and Cell, Vol. 167, p633–642.e11, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.09.028 20. The most characteristic features of snakes are their long body form and lack of legs. Pythons and boas have tiny bony limb remnants […]
“Pit start” for snakes, reported in ScienceNOW 15 November 2004. The complete item reads: “Biologists have long thought that pit vipers use the heat-sensing pits on their faces mainly to track warm-blooded prey. But a paper in the 15 November Journal of Experimental Biology finds that the pits also help the snakes gauge the temperature […]