April 23, 2015 • 49 mins
If you think snakes are legless reptile carnivores, then you are exactly right. If you think snakes are here to kill you then you are exactly wrong. Learn more about these fascinating and undeservedly condemned animals in today's podcast episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry the
Stuff you Should Know, the Snake Edition, Snake Bliskin Edition,
(00:23):
oh Man, good character, especially if you know, like it
had to have been something of a joke to selected
Kurt Russell because he was I guess I don't know
whether that came before after the thing, do you. I
think the thing was first? Okay, so I guess it
wasn't quite a big of a joke. But think earlier
in his career, like Kurt Russell didn't even have friends.
(00:44):
He was like such a squeaky clean Walt Disney movie kid,
like all the all the normal kids hated him. Said yeah,
like he was just known as like this just can't
do anything wrong, like like squeaky clean kid. Well, that
was my first R rated movie. Was Escaped from New York. Yeah, yeah,
can you dig it? No? That was The Warriors. Yeah, no,
(01:08):
I remember I called what it was on, like HBO
or something. It wasn't even in the theater, and I
called my mom to ask her if it was that's
how good of a boy that I was. You're like
Kurt Russell. Yeah, sure, I know you're by yourself because
you don't have any friends. Go ahead and watch that's funny. Yeah,
man alive. That's a good snake story. You know that
(01:29):
has nothing to do with snakes per se. Oh I've
got a good snake story for later. Oh well, I
was gonna say lay it on est, but we'll wait. Yeah,
I'm teasing that one. We'll wait patiently. All of you
who suffer from a little something called, oh video phobia,
you can go ahead and skip this one because it's
gonna creep you out. I'm not afraid of snakes, and
(01:50):
I'm still creeped out by some parts of this because
we're gonna get like down and dirty with snakes. Well,
here's my deal, and I think we should say this
as a public service. I get reaped out by snakes initially,
and then I'm like, Okay, it's just a snake. But um,
snakes are vilified and killed when they shouldn't be killed. Yeah,
because people are scared of them and that ain't cool.
(02:10):
Years and years ago and the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader,
where I learned ninety percent of the stuff that I know. Um,
I read about a study of the snakes, like people
took a fake snake and put it in the road
and then like hid behind some bushes and that's what
people did. And allegedly people would run over the snake
and then back up and run over it again. And yeah,
(02:32):
according to the well according to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
But um yeah, I think people go out of their
way to kill snakes. Yeah. I know camps on campers
who like that they're hiking will kill a snake if
they see it. Um bad campers. Yeah, that's not good,
especially considering only like five percent of snake species are
venomous and um, so it's pretty rare to come across
(02:56):
a venomous snake. Uh. There are some out there that
will hurt you pretty bad, and we'll talk about those. Um.
But for the most part, most snakes either kill their
prey by constricting or swallowing you whole while you're alive.
You're too big for most snakes to really take on,
(03:17):
so they're not gonna mess with you. Sure, but it
is there is a You can't really fault people necessarily,
although you and I both do for just killing snakes.
Wantonly and indiscriminately. Um, because the study after study has
found that we are really, there's no other explanation, evolutionarily
(03:39):
primed to fear and notice snakes in our environment. Yeah,
you found that cool article. And I've seen this before
that um is unpopular science. Yeah, they've done studies that
showed that people are more apt because of we evolve
to not want to get killed by snakes, to see
snakes and like our peripheral visi and than almost anything else. Yeah,
(04:02):
even spiders, which people are creeped out by. Yeah. Well,
and also spiders are deadly too, so it would make
sense that over time, the people who were best at
recognizing spiders and getting away from them would live longer
to pass on their genes, and so through natural selection,
that would be the case supposedly. Um, the same thing
happened with snakes. But we are even better at recognizing
(04:24):
snakes than spiders snake detection theory. Yeah. Pretty good band
name it is. It's been a while since we had
a good band name. It's definitely one of them. I
just saw that on T shirt and a marquee simultaneously.
That means that's a good band name. So if you
want to know more about that whole study. You can
read about I think it was in the Lantern in
(04:45):
two thousand and ten. Or basically, it's like, yes, we
can find a snake just about anywhere, even in our
peripheral vision, and we are scared of snakes, and rightfully so, Yeah,
I know, I feel like I'm primed when I'm camping
and hiking, just I'm just always sort of on the lookout.
I'm never just like daydreaming and walking. I'm always looking
at the ground. And that's smart, man, because they will
(05:05):
lay right across the trail and that they they're not
looking out for you, so you stumble upon them, and
that's when an accident might happen. Yeah, the problem is
with snakes, you're looking at the ground. You better be
looking up to Like, if you're in the Amazon, a
lot of boa constrictors dangle from trees and then like
drop themselves down onto their prey, which includes monkeys, of
(05:26):
which you, my friend, are one's right, you know, So
if you had a boa constrictor that was feeling kind
of froggy, they might come at you. Or those flying
snakes that obviously cannot fly, but they glide down quite
a way is in Sri Lanka, right, Yeah, if you've
seen these videos, Um, they leap from a tree and
start squiggling, and then they flatten their body out and
(05:49):
they can go a long way from where they started,
and it's not straight down, you know what I'm saying.
So let's just re read, rephrase all this, let's restay it.
You and I disagree with killing snakes indiscriminately. It's just wrong.
But there is a healthy and understandable preternatural human fear
(06:12):
of snakes, actually just natural human fear. Yea. Even Darwin
wrote about it. Oh yeah, he tried to do that test. Remember, like,
I'm not gonna jump when the snake jumps at me,
and he's like, keep jumping, and he's basically like it's
human instinct. Alright. So shall we start with snakes in
general in earnest if they've been around a lot longer
(06:33):
than we have. Yeah, there are twenty seven hundred known
species of this reptile, and um, one thing you'll find
in common with all of them is they all have
no limbs. That's something they can't wear a vest. I
can't wear vests because there's nowhere to put their thumbs right,
or there's no thumbs to put in the vest. No arms.
(06:55):
Oh but I thought you meant just like you gotta
have the thumbs in the vest too. Well, sure you gotta,
but I mean you have arms for to have the thumbs.
That's from pe big adventure. Oh see, I just trampled
all over that thing. Um. They are carnivores means they
meet they eat meat. Um yeah, well, which includes you,
(07:16):
It includes meets. I'm just a big monkey. And they're
cold blooded. They're ectothermic, which means their inner temperature varies, uh,
along with where they are. It fluctuates depending on how
hotter cold it is. And that's all snakes. And apparently
they tend to thrive. Um, well, all ectothermic animals tend
to thrive and get bigger in warm or climates too. Yeah, yeah,
(07:39):
that makes sense, which is why the biggest snakes you're
gonna find are in the tropics near the equator. Uh.
If you think they look like legless lizards, it's because
they sort of are there from the same order, which
is Squamata, And then there are a couple of sub
orders sorry for lizards and Serpentus for snakes or phidia,
(08:00):
which is where the phobia comes from, pobia, which is
the fear of snakes like serpentus better yes, orpentaphobias. Ways,
it just makes sense. Sure. Um. If you look at
a picture of a snake, which we have on this article,
there are some pretty good graphics. Uh. If you look
at their body, it's pretty neat because even though they
(08:22):
look funny, they are not so different from us. They
have bones, and they have organs, and they have a
skull and a brain and their vertebrates. Yeah, it's all
just sort of squished in that long body such that
it all sort of fits next to each other. Right.
The thing is, although they have like some the same
senses that we have. I noticed I'm making sounds more
(08:44):
than usual unconsciously in this episode, but subconscious exactly. They
have the same senses that we have in much the
same way, but they're um adjusted slightly differently like snakes.
They don't have ears. Anybody who's ever looked at a
snake would flip out if you saw one with ears. Um,
(09:05):
But they do have the ability to hear. They just
have um. The sides of their skull have little um
specialized bones that the skin covers sound vibrations hit the skin,
it's transferred to the bone and that transfers to uh
an auditory nerve where the brain processes it and says
it's jack rabbit and I'm hungry, exactly going that way. Um.
(09:26):
Site they do not see in color, and depending on
the snake's environment and where they how they live their life, basically, um,
their eyes are going to be quite different. Um. There
are rods that have a low light uh distinguishing It's
like I sort of get the sense that it's like
the fuzzy, fuzzy looking shapes and things not super crystal clear. Yeah. Like, Um,
(09:48):
that that camera trick they always use when somebody's coming
out of anesthesia in the hospital blinks that. That is
probably one of the types of site the cones produced
the clear images. And Um, if a snake like lives
in a cave in the dark for most of its life,
it's not gonna need that awesome vision, It's gonna just
have like that light and dark sense. If a snake
(10:10):
lives above ground does all of its hunting above ground,
they have a really good vision and great depth perception. Yeah,
and can actually like adjust the focus from you know,
far away to near very easily, and they actually can
see some color really just not like anything in the
range that we can see, but they do have the
(10:32):
spectacular extra vision, yes, and for red stuff. Yeah. So basically,
if you seem predator snakes see you like that. Some
snakes do. Snake species, especially ones that live above ground,
because they are frequently nocturnal and they hunt warm blooded animals,
(10:52):
So they have basically little thermal imaging cameras that are
on top of their normal vision. Yeah, and I think
that helps their periphery a little bit as well, Like
they'll just see like something hot next to me, what
snake is eating that monkey? You know? They make that
(11:13):
noise too, That was a great noise. Uh. And then
we'll round out the senses with smell um. They have
little nasal openings and they have little olfactory chamber to
process that stuff. And they also have tongues which are
not there to taste because they don't have a sense
of taste, which is yeah, they're just there to eat,
(11:34):
not to enjoy it. Yeah, so they'll like swallow a
pick hoole and just be like, how was that. I
don't know, I don't have a sense of taste. I'm full,
But they do. They do flick their tongue, as anybody knows,
and it's one of the defining characteristics of snakes. But
what they're doing is gathering odorance out of the air
and delivering them to these little scent glands or scent
(11:54):
organs called Jacobson's glands Jacobson's organs and um. The thing
is basically hooked up to a secondary old factory nerve
that further interprets the air. Yes, sent, so I get
the feeling that smell. They're pretty pretty good at smelling. Yeah,
two times over. That's um. Then they have their digestive tract,
(12:14):
which is going to run all along the length of
the body. Um, I'm telling you, look at this graphic.
It's really kind of spells it out. Everything is just elongated.
It's a good died in the wool how stuff works.
Illustration Agreed. So you've got these, uh you know, you've
got your mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, small and large intestines.
You've got an anus, it's all stretched along the whole
(12:37):
length of the body, right exactly. You've got a trachea.
You've got lungs, at least one lung some snakes up two.
Some even have a third. Yeah, and that's weird because um,
I mean it makes sense if they would have three.
If they just have one, that's odd to me. The
reason it's odd is because when snakes are digesting their food,
their metabolic rate increases because they're often eating things that
(13:00):
can be fifty of their body weights. And when you're
eating something that large and swallowing a whole, you're metabolic
rate goes into high gear. And you also need to
produce a lot more digestive fluids than you normally would,
so their oxygen consumption can increase by up to like
a hundred times. So you would think that they would
(13:21):
have like fifteen lungs, but apparently some of them just
have the one. But what is even more interesting, Chuck,
is when you have a like a whole rabbit just
in your mouth is completely full of a rabbit, you
still need to breathe, so they the snakes can actually
extend their tricky and they're breathing tube out of their
(13:42):
mouth from underneath their prey. Basically like um, one of
those like wildly coyote cartoons where I don't know if
he ever did, but bugs bunny definitely. Did you just
grab like a reed and use it as a straw
from underwater? We'll imagine that if bugs anywhere in the
snake's mouth, and that read was coming out from underneath them.
(14:04):
That's the analogy I was going for. Uh. They also
don't have a dire frame, which is pretty interesting. They
breathed by widening and narrowing their rib cage, literally creating
a vacuum, pushing air in and sucking air, pushing her
out and sucking air back in, and between each of
these cycles they actually stopped. They have an apnea that
occurs where they don't breathe at all, and sometimes it's
(14:26):
a few seconds, sometimes it's a few minutes. But um,
that's how they breathe. It's crazy and cool. So I'm
I'm pretty much enthralled by now with snakes. I'm not
creeped out yet. We haven't really reached the creepy parts.
We'll get to those starting after we get back from
this break. Chuck. Yes, you have the ability to shed
(15:06):
dead skin cells pretty much constantly. It's always they're always
sloughing off. Yeah, we had a great episode on that
we did what was it a skin right? Yeah, but
also did it come up? And does your body regenerate
itself every seven years or something? You're constantly doing that
with skin cells. Snakes um shed their skin as well,
but they do it in a completely different technique, and
(15:30):
they mold. They actually shed their whole outer layers skin
every once in a while. Yeah. Sometimes you'll see that
in the woods and you'll think, oh, well, there was
a snake and now he's not here, but here's his
hollow body or hollow skin. Um. So what they have
is have an elastic skin that attaches to muscles, and
(15:50):
then the scales are made of keratin, the same thing
that our fingernails are made from. And those actually they
the number of scales have doesn't change or the pattern
as they grow. I guess the scales just get larger. Yeah,
and they they replace themselves over time. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Yeah.
So um, when the outer skin of the snakes starts
(16:13):
to get kind of worn down and banged up, the
snake says it's time for some new ones. So they
start reproducing skin cells. But almost these um specialized skin
cells between their outer skin and their inner skin, and
those things form this layer between the two and they liquefy,
which helps kind of. Well, first it makes the outer
(16:34):
skin a little more um shed doble, softens it up,
but it also like separates it from the snake itself,
so they can eventually slide out of it. And it
gets to a point where it starts like rubbing its
chin against a rock like a kitty cat. Yeah, and
like um and like right and like uh, it ends
(16:54):
up degloving its whole body. Basically, Man, you love that word.
It's a great descript it is. And it turns out
and we'll see this as we progress here. But snakes
use rocks and things a lot because they don't have limbs,
and so they'll rub up against that thing, like you said,
and just peel it off and just keep going until
the skin's all gone. And they're like, I got a
(17:15):
new suit, check it out, check out my bow tie,
and I just have to do this again. How often?
Well it depends, this article said, Um, it can happen
anywhere from it can start again a few days later,
a few months later, a few days later. What a
useless species of snake that must be. Like all they
do is mold the whole time. Yeah, Because it takes
(17:35):
about two weeks to complete the molting process, So that
surprised me. They're consumed by the quest for looking young. Yeah,
maybe that's what it is. Um a few months later
makes a little more sense to me. But and I
think it could have been too on how banged up
they get, Like maybe they're forced the molt a few
days later, because it's something like a Steve McQueen snake
(17:56):
would probably mold a lot um aches. Uh. They grow
their entire life, which is another great fact to me,
maybe the best one of the show, but that they
indeterminate growth. Yeah, they never stopped growing. No, they can
just keep growing and growing. Again, it depends on like
how ample their food supply is, what the ambient temperature
(18:17):
is in their environment. But they can just keep on growing. Yeah,
this slows down, they don't grow at the same rate,
but once they reach maturity, they keep on growing. They
can live anywhere from four to years depending on the species,
and probably more than that or less depending on the
hazards in the area. Yes, like people with machetes exactly.
(18:39):
All right, are we to the part? And this I
think is what creeps people out a little bit. It's
how snakes move that's definitely probably the creepiest part about it.
It's one of them. See, I think it's amazing. It
is slightly disconcerting to see because you're used to things
with legs and arms, but when you see that slithering motion,
it definitely like I think for most people it's just
(19:00):
a little bit of a yeah, you know, but if
you stop and look at it, you're like, wow, they
really have that down path. Yeah, it's a wonder of nature.
And there there. Snakes are able to locomote um. Because
there we said they're vertebrates. Their bodies are made up
of scores and scores and hundreds depending on the size
and type of the snake, of um tiny vertebrae that
(19:23):
are attached to pairs of ribs and it goes all
throughout the snake's body. And basically each of these is
a point at which the snake can contort itself. You've
got a bunch of these working together in tandem. The
snake can propel itself forward using a number of different techniques.
They also have what amounts to on their bellies on
(19:43):
their underside, basically tire tread ventral scales. It's pretty neat
and those are used to just uh, I get the feeling.
They just grip on whatever it can grip on and
help it along. So there's four main ways that a
snake propels itself along. The one that um, I think
most is most popular among snakes these days is the
(20:04):
serpentine motion. The serpentine motion, Yeah, the classic s shape
also known as undulatory locomotion. And basically the net contracts
its muscles and it the body is thrust from side
to side and um, it says I'm going, I'm going,
and the snake just takes off like a rocket. Yeah.
And this can be in on in water or on land.
(20:26):
If you've ever been in a lake and seen a snake, uh,
swimming across the water, that'll get you going quick because
those things move really quick in the water. Um. And
a lot of water snakes are poisonous for sure. Yeah
the water. Yeah, we have those here in Georgia. Of course.
What's the other copper heads will get in the creeks
(20:47):
and rivers. Um. So these are because they have no
resistance points. Obviously in the water they can just slink
along quicker. But on the land they use these rocks
and branches and little divots and dents in the landscape.
To uh just you know, propel itself, Like I'm gonna
put my belly on that rock and shoot myself forward
a little bit. Yeah, and then whatever is below my belly,
(21:10):
it's gonna be on the rock and just inches itself along.
We'll not inches. These things can move in some cases
right by inches, well by feet, like the black Mamba thirteen. Wow,
that is so scary because that's a pretty poisonous um snake. Yeah.
I think it's number five on the list, which we'll
get to. Um. There's side winding too, which is crazy. Yeah.
(21:33):
Those are creepy looking. It'll get your dog disqualified in
a UM in a dog show. Yeah, well yeah, is
that one of the big strikes against side gating. Yeah,
for sure. We did one on dog shows, right, yeah
we did. Yeah. It's good for UM for snakes though,
especially ones where there aren't those resistant points like rocks
and branches and leaves that a snake can use to
(21:54):
propel itself. Um, say, like along sand in a sandy desert. Yeah,
that's where I've usually seen side winder. That's where the
sidewinding goes on. Yeah, it's the same s shape, but
it's um. The cool thing about sidewinding to me is
if you slow it down and look closely, the major
portions of the snake's body is off the sand when
it's moving. It's like just sort of check it out. Yeah,
(22:17):
like my fronts on and my backs down. Now my
backs down on, my fronts on, and the whole time
the middle is off the ground. Yeah, there's just basically
like the parts that curved down. Everything else is held up.
Those are the only points in contact with the ground
and trying to hop I get the feeling. Yeah, like
I wish I head legs doing my best here, I'm
doing my best. Um. There's the caterpillar, which I haven't
(22:38):
seen much. Um that is the same rectilinear locomotion, but
it's up and down like creates that rippling effect like
you would see a caterpillar. Um, I don't see that
a whole lot. Well. Yeah, rather than side to side,
the curves are up and down. It's like the breakdancing
move the worm. Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. Uh,
they should have called it the snake. Should And then
(23:01):
my favorite the concertina, which is sort of like the
s but I get the feeling. It's like, uh, when
you see the old hand accordion in a cartoon, like
the front moves forward and then stops, and then the
bat catches up, then the front moves forward again. That's
sort of what it looks like. Yeah, and they use
concertin emotion for um climbing stuff like trees usually. Yeah,
(23:27):
there's another disconcerting thing about snakes that they can climb
trees and then jump out of them. Here we are
saying you shouldn't fear snakes, and all we're doing is
make people fear snakes again. Another cool graphic though on
snake movement on the article here at how stuff works.
All right, so let's talk uh, big snakes. Okay, because
(23:49):
the anaconda, I think everyone knows is the largest snake,
and those things are great swimmers that can weigh as
much as five and fifty pounds. About those things. I
actually enjoyed that dumb movie. I never saw it really,
that was terrible, but terribly good. You know, I had
a really good cast for such a bad movie, like
Owen Wilson and John Foyt and ice Cube j Lo.
(24:13):
I don't know. Marlon Brando, Yeah, he was the snake right. Um.
I always I could do a Brando impression so bad
right now? Oh yeah, which a movie would you do?
I would just do him as a snake. The seed
Mine would have to be as like the Vito Corleone
is a snake because I can only do brand Over
through his movies. That's fine, go ahead, no no, no no, no,
(24:33):
I'm not gonna do it. Okay, Um make a man offler.
It couldn't refuse. That was definitely worth the weight. They
can be up to twelve inches in diameter. And you're
going to find these dudes in uh rivers in South America,
and they spend their time in the water because they're
(24:54):
so large. Uh that's the best way they can get around, right,
They're they're huge. Yeah, so they're again less resistance in
the water, so they've learned to be pretty good swimmers.
And they are quite the hunter. Um. They their eyes
and their nose are on the tops of their heads,
so very much like an alligator or crocodile. They can
be almost completely submerged but still keep an eye on
(25:15):
their prey. They're tough dudes. They're not poisonous. Their constrictors right, yeah.
I think they're related to BoA's. Yeah, they're related to
boas and they can they can hold their breath for
up to ten minutes if they do go underwater, which
is pretty crazy too. But um, what was the um
I even found that article the UM. It was an
article on smith sony and about the Titana Boa. Yeah,
(25:37):
this ancient Uh, I think it was after the dinosaurs, correct, Yeah,
it wasn't that very heavy salad day time after when
all of the former prey of the dinosaurs were allowed
to get huge. One of the things that got huge
was the Titana Boa. It was about fifty six million
years ago. And there's a um a coal pit and
(26:00):
Columbia that is yielded just a trove of fossils from
this era, including the Titana Boa where it was discovered. Yeah,
and I think the remarkable thing about this one, aside
from its size, was that they were able to find
a snake skull, which is a really rare thing apparently
because when skulls, when snake dies, their skull bones just
(26:22):
sort of go away to the wind because they're in
so many little pieces exactly like a human skull is
basically two pieces your lower jaw and the rest of
your skull. Um with a snake skull and we'll get
into why. But there's a like you say, a bunch
of different pieces to them, and yeah, when when they died,
just disintegrates. There's snakes skull parts, but an intex snake skull.
(26:45):
It's rare, very rare. So then to discover an entirely new,
fifty six million year old species of giant snake with
an intext skull was a big deal. And they found
the Titana boa and they figured out that it grew
to about forty long, weighed about a ton. Wow, so
it was about as long as a school bust and
(27:05):
weighed as much as a rhinoceros does. Crazy, and uh,
it could eat gators, turtles, like everything. It's just it
was the king of this Colombian jungle back back in
the day. Yeah, I imagine it would ever wanted to. Yes,
that is I can't imagine. I mean, an anacon of
these days is impressive, right, but a forty foter that's
(27:26):
something else. I mean, it basically is what they were
predicting in the movie Anaconda unwaitingly just probably about forty
in a ton right in that movie? Yeah, really bad
c G. I Yeah, to make it all happen Uh, well,
let's talk about eating a little bit um. One of
the remarkable things about the snake is that it does
(27:48):
swallow its prey hole. And it can do this. And
everyone's seen the snake when they go to unhinge that jaw,
that is what they're doing. They have a very uh
specialized feature and it's called a quadrate bone. And the
upper jaw connects to the lower jaw with this, and
it can unhinge itself, and the rest of the skull
is connected by like muscle intending, so it's it can
(28:10):
get up to like a hundred and fifty degrees wide open, right,
And it's not just the upper jaw and the lower
jaw that can unhinge and get wider. I think, what
do you say a hundred fifty degrees? It also can
expand side to side. So like the bones that make
up the front of the snake's skull are like you said,
connected by bone or by muscle intending, so they can
(28:32):
stretch apart as well. So not only does it get
bigger vertically this, the whole mouth can get bigger horizontally
as well. And it can again, a snake can need
a whole rabbit. That's right, and how it does that
is and this is um how the article describes it.
It opens its mouth and begins to walk it's lower
jaw over the prey as its backward curving teeth grind
(28:54):
up the animal. You know, it just sort of sucks
it in. Right. It depends on the species of snake
whether it has bad akward curving teeth or or not.
But not venomous snakes do have the backward curving teeth
so that the prey can't get out. They can get in,
but they can't get out to check in, but they
don't check out. All along they are crushing um as
(29:16):
the deeper goes in the digestive digestive track, crushing this
thing down um until eventually it's just broken down in
the nutrients, just like eating a regular meal exactly. And again,
it takes a lot more digestive juices to to make
this happen. So the snakes just producing this stuff over time.
Sometimes it takes venom yeah, you know, to subdue this
(29:37):
animal because of a rabbit. It's gonna be like I
don't want to go in that mouth. No, I'm going
to scratch your soft forets like you might get me.
But I'm gonna take part of you down with me.
So that's why they have these um, wicked little things
called fangs, and um, they're in the upper jaw. And
venomous snakes have the two hallmark hollowed out fangs that
(29:58):
are just basically, uh, a delivery system, a sharp little
delivery system. Uh. And they have glands under each eye
called venom ducks, and that's where the good stuff comes from.
They just squeeze it through uh those little little things, right.
And supposedly the venom passes through other glands where more
chemicals are added to it and it becomes this amazing
(30:20):
specialized brew. Um. And apparently each snake species kind of
has its own signature death cocktail. But there are some
toxins that are found in just about all of them. Um,
there's neurotoxins breakdown your nervous system function, including things like breathing.
So that'll that'll stop your we'll stop your life eventually paralysis, right,
(30:45):
you don't even be able to move, which is why
it's a big one that helps them defeed, you know,
because all of a sudden, rabbits like alive, but you know,
has that look in its eye, yes, like I can't move.
What's going on? The time is near. I hate Tuesdays. Uh.
Cardiotoxins are gonna deteriorate the heart and basically say you're
done beating. UM, and then they have hemotoxins and that
(31:08):
will erupt your blood vessels and you're gonna bleed internally.
You know what else I've found it's pretty neat. So
that's Those are venomous snakes. Remember we talked about like
what's the most poisonous animal or venomous animal in the world.
We had an episode on that. Um, there are some
so venomous snake is something that produces its own poison.
There are some snakes that are technically poisonous because they
(31:31):
eat like poisonous tree frogs or something like that, and
they collect the poison from the frogs and store it
and then they use it to catch Preyora's defense later on.
But they're not physically producing their own poison. They're collecting
it and deploying it. And they wouldn't have fangs either
no or else they wouldn't have fangs with the hollowed
(31:52):
out delivery system. Interesting. Uh. When they they do have fangs,
by the way they are, they fold backwards in the mouth.
Did you already say that. No, there's like pockets though
that like are in their gums, the roof of their mouth.
They're hard palate. Oh it's like a little holster. Okay, yeah,
because it's not. It just go right through the bottom
(32:13):
of their mouth and they look pretty funny. Yeah, they
would fang Holster another band name. I knew this is
gonna have a lot of band names. The venom can
also have UM. If you heard our blood episode, uh a,
glutenants and anticoagulants which are either going to make the
blood clot or thin out. Remember in our blood type
(32:34):
episode there was a glute nation was what happens when
you mix unlike blood not good? No, um, And like again,
like you mentioned, this is just another addition to the cocktail.
Um that's added to the other stuff you know. Um.
(32:55):
And then if you want to die another way, you
could be constricted. Yeah, there are boas and anacondas and
they they wrap around you. Well, first they'll they'll get
you in their mouth so you're not moving. Then they'll
wrap around you and you finally exhale, and then they
say that was your last breath, my friend, So long sucker,
(33:17):
because I'm gonna squeeze you so tight You're not gonna
be able to inhale ever again. Yeah, and it's not
just the lungs that they crushed. They also crushed the heart.
They squeeze so tight that the heart is prevented from
contracting and expanding. You ever had a boa constrictor like
on your arm, like friends bet or whatever? Yeah, I
remember the one that um when we were shooting. Oh yeah, yeah,
(33:40):
did did you pull that one? Yeah? I think yeah,
yeah it did. Once in college, I was at a
party and someone had a snake and I was, um,
had a few drinks. It was like, I'm gonna get
over my fearce snakes, and now is the time. And
he let the snake like you know, crawl around me
and wrap around my arm. And I was like all right,
this is awesome and slightly creeped out, but I was like,
(34:01):
all right, I can I can handle this. It wasn't
like you put a tcharanche along on me. No, I
could not handle that. That would be very freaky. Yeah.
All right, Well, after this message break, we are going
to talk a little bit about snake sex. Alright, you
(34:36):
ready to talk snake sex. I'm ready. Man, this is
the creepiest part to me. Oh no, it's not beautiful.
A female snake is the one who sends out the order. Um, hey,
I'm ready to have some sex, right, So I'm gonna
be a pheromones pheromones, and I'm gonna leave a little
trail of pheromones everywhere I go today because today is
(34:58):
the day, all right. And the male snake picks up
that sent and it's like, I'm gonna follow this trail
until I catch up to this lovely lady at the
end of the trail. And then he finally catches up
to her. Apparently the lady snake is just going about
a normal business, but the male snake is like, well,
I know what I'm doing today and following the trail
every where he goes. Um. And when he does catch
(35:20):
up to her, he says, hey, how's it going, And
he does that by like bumping the back of her
head with his chin basically like hey, I think that's hey, yeah,
hey you yeah, pay attention to me, okay. And then
after that, after he's got her attention, um, he also
is like sliding over like back and forth, just basically
(35:42):
being a pest um. And finally, the lady snake, if
she likes the guy, she likes what she sees, she'll
be like, all right, fine and poop up goes the tail.
I wonder if a snake, female snake, ever sees a lizard,
and it's like, oh, man, if only it didn't have
like those arms and hands, what they could do? You know? Um,
(36:05):
I don't think that's what. Snakes don't think like that,
do they. I don't know. All right, So she lifts
her tail and she said, I like you, I'm willing
and able. Um, let's do this. And so they wrap
their tails around each other and they sort of just
intertwined until their cloacas meet up. And that's where it
(36:26):
all happens, my friend, that's where it all happens. The
male snakes hemy peens, which is his reproductive organ, uh says,
here's some sperm that you got a hemmy, it's funny.
Uh yeah, He delivers sperm through his hemmy peen. Why
(36:46):
is this so awkward? I don't know. So yes, the
hemmy peens delivers the sperm and the female becomes fertilizeday,
and now they can make baby snakes or lay eggs. Yeah,
this is intus like some of them do both. Yeah,
and that that I thought that was unusual. It would
seem like, I don't know, in nature, usually don't have
(37:07):
one or the other, you know, or both. Yeah, I
mean like maybe like this kind of animal, like a
bird lays an egg, but a panda bear lays has
live young. Right, there aren't pan bears that can also
lay eggs or have live young. That just seems a
little too random. Different egg hatch would be about the
(37:30):
cutest thing that would break the internet. If a little
panda bear hatch from an egg it was like two pounds,
that would be pretty cute. Um. So if they have
live young, they can give birth to anywhere from one
to a hundred and fifty snakes, which is uh, you know,
might be some people's nightmare. Yeah. Like remember that part
in Indiana Jones and Tempily Doom not Raiders, No, it
(37:53):
was the they were at the feast at the maharaj
Is people and they bring out that snake and slice
it open all the alive. Oh yeah, yeah, man, they
make good snakes. I forgot because in Raiders the famous
asps um Hey that was a good uh sala was
(38:13):
that his name. I think so right. I don't know, man,
I'm gonna get killed for that one. If it's not UM.
If they lay eggs, they can hatch them internally, hold
them internally until they hatch or give birth to the egg,
and then the egg will hatch UM. And like you said,
that's it's sort of the combination method. If they hold
the eggs internally UM, and they take care of their young,
(38:37):
but not really like forever. Like sometimes they'll even leave
the eggs before they hatch. Sometimes they'll stick around and
protect them for a little while. So it sort of depends.
It depends on the species. I guess the reason why
they would have so many different qualities in the same
like family, UM is that they've been around for like
(39:00):
a hundred and sixty million years. Yeah, and the variety
of their distribution all over the world. Yeah. So speaking
of variety, like we said, just five percent of snakes
and poisonous, but the ones that are poisonous can be
really really poisonous. Yeah, just not just mildly poisonous, but
like really deadly poisonous. Well you mean venomous still are poisonous,
(39:25):
thank you? Yeah, I mean venomous you're absolutely right. Yeah.
I found a list of most venomous snakes um, and
lucky for us here in the US of A, in
Canada and Mexico, we only have the rattlesnake to contend with. Well,
wait a minute, I thought we had like water moccasins
and copperas No, as far as the most venomous, like
a water moccasin bite, you'll be fine. Oh really, I
(39:46):
didn't know that. I thought it was like deadly. No. Well,
I mean if you just like went back and watch TV, maybe,
but you go to the doctor. It's not like I'm
gonna die in thirty minutes, because it's all about what
it comes down to is how eddy the venom is?
Like I got bit by a watermark. But judge duty
is on what am I gonna do? Decisions, decision. I
(40:09):
gotta see this verdict Um, the Eastern diamond back is
the most venomous in North America. And that was the
one that I encountered. My snake story. When I was
a kid, we were looking at property with my parents
in the North Georgia Mountains and my brother and I
were running ahead and there was a rattlesnake, a big, big,
rattlesnake coiled and ready to go, and your brother just
(40:30):
pulled us six shooters shot it once in the head
and like toil is gun and put it back right now.
The old mountain man came in with a stick like
just from nowhere, like running behind us, and one jab
got the head. Geez. Yeah, it was scary man. And
looking back, I'm like, I wish you hadn't killed the snake,
but we were. We were four ft from this thing
(40:51):
and it was completely coiled with his head up like
he was ready to go. Yeah, he could have totally
gotten this. Uh. Number nine is the death adder in
Austra Eliot in New Guinea, and they kill other snakes.
But if you happen upon them, you will notice their
triangular shaped head, which is always a dead giveaway usually
that that's not a good snake or not again a
(41:12):
good snake, but not one you want to like to
play with. And by the way, Chuck, if you had
a um you encountered the four ft rattlesnake, you could
expect a striking distance of two thirds of his body
length is usually the rule of thumb for a rattlesnake.
We were probably close to striking distance then man, Yeah,
that's scary. Uh. We were out in the woods too.
(41:34):
That wouldn't have been a pretty scene, you know. Um,
the old mountain man would have just had to put
you down immediately. Now he was just laid on your face.
He probably would have done the old suck it out
with his mouth and spit, which I think is not
the way to do it from what I understand. UM,
vipers are next number eight. China, India, Southeast Asia, Central Asia,
(41:56):
Middle East, very fast, very ill tempered. The Philippine cobra.
I didn't know this. Cobras generally aren't, um. I mean,
they're venomous, but their venom isn't among the most deadly,
like you could go watch TV for a little while. No,
probably not. But the Philippine cobra is the exception. Um.
(42:17):
They have the most deadly venom of all the cobras,
very narrow, toxic. There's the tiger snake. Yeah, uh, this
one can kill you within thirty minutes. Yeah, supposedly pretty quick.
And before there was such thing as anne vent and
tiger snakes killed at a rate of about six Also
in Australia. By the way, as you'll notice that as
(42:39):
a trend, and when we talked about the most venomous creatures,
Australia was always around. We have our black Mamma which
we talked about in Africa, very aggressive, very fast, and
they can strike up to twelve times in a row
and a single bite is capable of killing anywhere between
ten and twenty five adults, very deadly. It's super deadly.
(43:00):
It's still not the deadliest though, is that Nope, there's
several more. Number four, the taipan Uh, also in Australia,
can kill twelve thousand guinea pigs um with a single bite.
That's like, that's what they compare calories too as well.
(43:20):
It's like eight guinea pigs where the calories um. The
blue k r a i t the blue crate malaysian
um and it is the most deadly of that species
in South Southeast Asian Indonesia. Fifty of the bites even
with anti ven and you will die. That is so scary.
(43:42):
That's super scary. That is a that is a deadly
deadly snake. Number two, the Eastern brown one fourteen thousand
of an ounce is enough to kill an adult human
and um, they live. The scary thing about them is
they live in Australia near a major population center. So
those are the ones I think that you can go
(44:04):
out and find like the second most deadly snake in
the world in your yard or like a bar or
something like that at work. Can you imagine that man?
And number one the inland taipe in or the fierce snake.
And this is another subspecies, but they put it on
the list because they just said it deserves to be there,
(44:25):
and um, it is the most toxic venom in in
the world. Hundred and ten milligrams of venom in one
bite is enough to kill about one human beings or
five million guinea picks. The good thing about this one, though,
is it's not super aggressive and you're not going to
see one very much. It's rare to even encounter one.
For that reason, they don't have any fatalities on record.
(44:47):
Oh really yeah on record? Uh? And what was that
list from? Was that I O nine or was it
a list verse? Let's verse lest verse put it together
for ut Man. Yeah, double check, though I think it's
pretty accurate. I'd say just any of those ten um
avoiding the wild, don't kill him that unless you have to, right,
(45:08):
you know, but always hike with a flamethrower. Chucks, Have
you ever heard there's no snakes in Ireland? No? Is
that a saying? Oh? Yes? St. St Patrick supposedly drove
all the snakes out of Ireland. That's one of the
reasons he got so famous. He did not do that
because there are snakes in Ireland, of course, right, No, oh,
there really aren't. There are in like zoos and and
(45:28):
and in people's homes. But no, there's no snakes in
the wild in Ireland. Seriously, what about England, Scotland and Wales.
I think that there may be, But Ireland, when snakes
were developing, was underwater and snakes never made it over there.
So there really aren't snakes in Ireland as far as
I can tell. But are there in Scotland and England?
I'm guessing yes, surely one has crossed the border. And
(45:52):
I mean like the fact that there are some like
in zoos and people's homes mean that there eventually will
be because you know, like down in Florida, people would
like take pythons that they had as pets and just
release them in the everylades. And now that every lads
have a really large python population, a non named python population.
People are stupid and they didn't realize that that Python
(46:12):
was gonna get large exactly. Yeah, yep, go humans. Uh,
you got anything else? That's it, man, That's snakes. That's
all I got. You got anything else? All right? Well,
since we have nothing else, we want you to go
learn more about snakes. You can type the words snakes
in the search bart how stuff works dot com and
check out our podcast page for this episode with all
(46:33):
sorts of cool extra links. And since I said cool,
it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys, my name
is Kristen. I'm gonna call this. Hey guys, my name
is Kristen Lupus slash lupus. I want to send an
email thanking both of you, even though my relatively new fan,
I really think you're saving my life. A year and
(46:55):
a half ago, at twenty two, I was diagnosed with lupus,
which is a progressive auto I mean disease, and about
six eight months ago I started also struggling with the depression.
My boyfriend Ross tried every trick in the book, and
eventually I was I wasn't even getting out of bed.
I started to have passive suicidal idealization. It's a very
dark time. My family really joined together to get me
(47:16):
help though. I have a great psychiatrist, great therapist, and
I'm proud to say I am recovering. Uh. YouTube factor
in because my boyfriend recommended I listened to podcast on
panic attacks. He found to be a really helpful tool
when he was trying to figure out how to help
me cope. Uh. I couldn't leave my bed, but I
did have my iPhone, so I listened, and I kept
listening and kept listening for days. Eventually I started laughing again,
(47:40):
and then started looking at the articles related to topics
of the podcast and being like, this is like the
same thing, and it really gave me something new and
positive to talk about with my friends and family. I
listened to the show when I feel like I'm going
to have an episode of panic. It helps me to
breathe and to laugh. Oh that is so cool. It is.
It stimulates my brain and keeps me thinking, wondering, in
and awe of all sorts of awesome things. So thank
(48:02):
you for your help, and please keep up the amazing work.
I still have plenty of content to get through, but
I hope that's two of you keep making the podcast
for plenty time to come. We will. We have no
plans to stop anytime soon. And that is from Christin
Wolf and she's a native Atlanta, but she is in Washington,
d C. So Kristin, he should come out and see
our show in June in Washington, d C. Yeah, talk
(48:26):
about relaxing. Way do you see it alive? Well? Yeah,
but it's also extremely exciting too. Yeah that's true. Um,
thanks a lot, Christen for chuning that. We're glad we
got to help you out. And thanks for Ross the
Boyfriend for helping around Ross. Yeah, I mean, nice job. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us to
let us know anything, how we've helped you out, how
(48:47):
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on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for
(49:08):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry the
Stuff you Should Know, the Snake Edition, Snake Bliskin Edition,
(00:23):
oh Man, good character, especially if you know, like it
had to have been something of a joke to selected
Kurt Russell because he was I guess I don't know
whether that came before after the thing, do you. I
think the thing was first? Okay, so I guess it
wasn't quite a big of a joke. But think earlier
in his career, like Kurt Russell didn't even have friends.
(00:44):
He was like such a squeaky clean Walt Disney movie kid,
like all the all the normal kids hated him. Said yeah,
like he was just known as like this just can't
do anything wrong, like like squeaky clean kid. Well, that
was my first R rated movie. Was Escaped from New York. Yeah, yeah,
can you dig it? No? That was The Warriors. Yeah, no,
(01:08):
I remember I called what it was on, like HBO
or something. It wasn't even in the theater, and I
called my mom to ask her if it was that's
how good of a boy that I was. You're like
Kurt Russell. Yeah, sure, I know you're by yourself because
you don't have any friends. Go ahead and watch that's funny. Yeah,
man alive. That's a good snake story. You know that
(01:29):
has nothing to do with snakes per se. Oh I've
got a good snake story for later. Oh well, I
was gonna say lay it on est, but we'll wait. Yeah,
I'm teasing that one. We'll wait patiently. All of you
who suffer from a little something called, oh video phobia,
you can go ahead and skip this one because it's
gonna creep you out. I'm not afraid of snakes, and
(01:50):
I'm still creeped out by some parts of this because
we're gonna get like down and dirty with snakes. Well,
here's my deal, and I think we should say this
as a public service. I get reaped out by snakes initially,
and then I'm like, Okay, it's just a snake. But um,
snakes are vilified and killed when they shouldn't be killed. Yeah,
because people are scared of them and that ain't cool.
(02:10):
Years and years ago and the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader,
where I learned ninety percent of the stuff that I know. Um,
I read about a study of the snakes, like people
took a fake snake and put it in the road
and then like hid behind some bushes and that's what
people did. And allegedly people would run over the snake
and then back up and run over it again. And yeah,
(02:32):
according to the well according to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
But um yeah, I think people go out of their
way to kill snakes. Yeah. I know camps on campers
who like that they're hiking will kill a snake if
they see it. Um bad campers. Yeah, that's not good,
especially considering only like five percent of snake species are
venomous and um, so it's pretty rare to come across
(02:56):
a venomous snake. Uh. There are some out there that
will hurt you pretty bad, and we'll talk about those. Um.
But for the most part, most snakes either kill their
prey by constricting or swallowing you whole while you're alive.
You're too big for most snakes to really take on,
(03:17):
so they're not gonna mess with you. Sure, but it
is there is a You can't really fault people necessarily,
although you and I both do for just killing snakes.
Wantonly and indiscriminately. Um, because the study after study has
found that we are really, there's no other explanation, evolutionarily
(03:39):
primed to fear and notice snakes in our environment. Yeah,
you found that cool article. And I've seen this before
that um is unpopular science. Yeah, they've done studies that
showed that people are more apt because of we evolve
to not want to get killed by snakes, to see
snakes and like our peripheral visi and than almost anything else. Yeah,
(04:02):
even spiders, which people are creeped out by. Yeah. Well,
and also spiders are deadly too, so it would make
sense that over time, the people who were best at
recognizing spiders and getting away from them would live longer
to pass on their genes, and so through natural selection,
that would be the case supposedly. Um, the same thing
happened with snakes. But we are even better at recognizing
(04:24):
snakes than spiders snake detection theory. Yeah. Pretty good band
name it is. It's been a while since we had
a good band name. It's definitely one of them. I
just saw that on T shirt and a marquee simultaneously.
That means that's a good band name. So if you
want to know more about that whole study. You can
read about I think it was in the Lantern in
(04:45):
two thousand and ten. Or basically, it's like, yes, we
can find a snake just about anywhere, even in our
peripheral vision, and we are scared of snakes, and rightfully so, Yeah,
I know, I feel like I'm primed when I'm camping
and hiking, just I'm just always sort of on the lookout.
I'm never just like daydreaming and walking. I'm always looking
at the ground. And that's smart, man, because they will
(05:05):
lay right across the trail and that they they're not
looking out for you, so you stumble upon them, and
that's when an accident might happen. Yeah, the problem is
with snakes, you're looking at the ground. You better be
looking up to Like, if you're in the Amazon, a
lot of boa constrictors dangle from trees and then like
drop themselves down onto their prey, which includes monkeys, of
(05:26):
which you, my friend, are one's right, you know, So
if you had a boa constrictor that was feeling kind
of froggy, they might come at you. Or those flying
snakes that obviously cannot fly, but they glide down quite
a way is in Sri Lanka, right, Yeah, if you've
seen these videos, Um, they leap from a tree and
start squiggling, and then they flatten their body out and
(05:49):
they can go a long way from where they started,
and it's not straight down, you know what I'm saying.
So let's just re read, rephrase all this, let's restay it.
You and I disagree with killing snakes indiscriminately. It's just wrong.
But there is a healthy and understandable preternatural human fear
(06:12):
of snakes, actually just natural human fear. Yea. Even Darwin
wrote about it. Oh yeah, he tried to do that test. Remember, like,
I'm not gonna jump when the snake jumps at me,
and he's like, keep jumping, and he's basically like it's
human instinct. Alright. So shall we start with snakes in
general in earnest if they've been around a lot longer
(06:33):
than we have. Yeah, there are twenty seven hundred known
species of this reptile, and um, one thing you'll find
in common with all of them is they all have
no limbs. That's something they can't wear a vest. I
can't wear vests because there's nowhere to put their thumbs right,
or there's no thumbs to put in the vest. No arms.
(06:55):
Oh but I thought you meant just like you gotta
have the thumbs in the vest too. Well, sure you gotta,
but I mean you have arms for to have the thumbs.
That's from pe big adventure. Oh see, I just trampled
all over that thing. Um. They are carnivores means they
meet they eat meat. Um yeah, well, which includes you,
(07:16):
It includes meets. I'm just a big monkey. And they're
cold blooded. They're ectothermic, which means their inner temperature varies, uh,
along with where they are. It fluctuates depending on how
hotter cold it is. And that's all snakes. And apparently
they tend to thrive. Um, well, all ectothermic animals tend
to thrive and get bigger in warm or climates too. Yeah, yeah,
(07:39):
that makes sense, which is why the biggest snakes you're
gonna find are in the tropics near the equator. Uh.
If you think they look like legless lizards, it's because
they sort of are there from the same order, which
is Squamata, And then there are a couple of sub
orders sorry for lizards and Serpentus for snakes or phidia,
(08:00):
which is where the phobia comes from, pobia, which is
the fear of snakes like serpentus better yes, orpentaphobias. Ways,
it just makes sense. Sure. Um. If you look at
a picture of a snake, which we have on this article,
there are some pretty good graphics. Uh. If you look
at their body, it's pretty neat because even though they
(08:22):
look funny, they are not so different from us. They
have bones, and they have organs, and they have a
skull and a brain and their vertebrates. Yeah, it's all
just sort of squished in that long body such that
it all sort of fits next to each other. Right.
The thing is, although they have like some the same
senses that we have. I noticed I'm making sounds more
(08:44):
than usual unconsciously in this episode, but subconscious exactly. They
have the same senses that we have in much the
same way, but they're um adjusted slightly differently like snakes.
They don't have ears. Anybody who's ever looked at a
snake would flip out if you saw one with ears. Um,
(09:05):
But they do have the ability to hear. They just
have um. The sides of their skull have little um
specialized bones that the skin covers sound vibrations hit the skin,
it's transferred to the bone and that transfers to uh
an auditory nerve where the brain processes it and says
it's jack rabbit and I'm hungry, exactly going that way. Um.
(09:26):
Site they do not see in color, and depending on
the snake's environment and where they how they live their life, basically, um,
their eyes are going to be quite different. Um. There
are rods that have a low light uh distinguishing It's
like I sort of get the sense that it's like
the fuzzy, fuzzy looking shapes and things not super crystal clear. Yeah. Like, Um,
(09:48):
that that camera trick they always use when somebody's coming
out of anesthesia in the hospital blinks that. That is
probably one of the types of site the cones produced
the clear images. And Um, if a snake like lives
in a cave in the dark for most of its life,
it's not gonna need that awesome vision, It's gonna just
have like that light and dark sense. If a snake
(10:10):
lives above ground does all of its hunting above ground,
they have a really good vision and great depth perception. Yeah,
and can actually like adjust the focus from you know,
far away to near very easily, and they actually can
see some color really just not like anything in the
range that we can see, but they do have the
(10:32):
spectacular extra vision, yes, and for red stuff. Yeah. So basically,
if you seem predator snakes see you like that. Some
snakes do. Snake species, especially ones that live above ground,
because they are frequently nocturnal and they hunt warm blooded animals,
(10:52):
So they have basically little thermal imaging cameras that are
on top of their normal vision. Yeah, and I think
that helps their periphery a little bit as well, Like
they'll just see like something hot next to me, what
snake is eating that monkey? You know? They make that
(11:13):
noise too, That was a great noise. Uh. And then
we'll round out the senses with smell um. They have
little nasal openings and they have little olfactory chamber to
process that stuff. And they also have tongues which are
not there to taste because they don't have a sense
of taste, which is yeah, they're just there to eat,
(11:34):
not to enjoy it. Yeah, so they'll like swallow a
pick hoole and just be like, how was that. I
don't know, I don't have a sense of taste. I'm full,
But they do. They do flick their tongue, as anybody knows,
and it's one of the defining characteristics of snakes. But
what they're doing is gathering odorance out of the air
and delivering them to these little scent glands or scent
(11:54):
organs called Jacobson's glands Jacobson's organs and um. The thing
is basically hooked up to a secondary old factory nerve
that further interprets the air. Yes, sent, so I get
the feeling that smell. They're pretty pretty good at smelling. Yeah,
two times over. That's um. Then they have their digestive tract,
(12:14):
which is going to run all along the length of
the body. Um, I'm telling you, look at this graphic.
It's really kind of spells it out. Everything is just elongated.
It's a good died in the wool how stuff works.
Illustration Agreed. So you've got these, uh you know, you've
got your mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, small and large intestines.
You've got an anus, it's all stretched along the whole
(12:37):
length of the body, right exactly. You've got a trachea.
You've got lungs, at least one lung some snakes up two.
Some even have a third. Yeah, and that's weird because um,
I mean it makes sense if they would have three.
If they just have one, that's odd to me. The
reason it's odd is because when snakes are digesting their food,
their metabolic rate increases because they're often eating things that
(13:00):
can be fifty of their body weights. And when you're
eating something that large and swallowing a whole, you're metabolic
rate goes into high gear. And you also need to
produce a lot more digestive fluids than you normally would,
so their oxygen consumption can increase by up to like
a hundred times. So you would think that they would
(13:21):
have like fifteen lungs, but apparently some of them just
have the one. But what is even more interesting, Chuck,
is when you have a like a whole rabbit just
in your mouth is completely full of a rabbit, you
still need to breathe, so they the snakes can actually
extend their tricky and they're breathing tube out of their
(13:42):
mouth from underneath their prey. Basically like um, one of
those like wildly coyote cartoons where I don't know if
he ever did, but bugs bunny definitely. Did you just
grab like a reed and use it as a straw
from underwater? We'll imagine that if bugs anywhere in the
snake's mouth, and that read was coming out from underneath them.
(14:04):
That's the analogy I was going for. Uh. They also
don't have a dire frame, which is pretty interesting. They
breathed by widening and narrowing their rib cage, literally creating
a vacuum, pushing air in and sucking air, pushing her
out and sucking air back in, and between each of
these cycles they actually stopped. They have an apnea that
occurs where they don't breathe at all, and sometimes it's
(14:26):
a few seconds, sometimes it's a few minutes. But um,
that's how they breathe. It's crazy and cool. So I'm
I'm pretty much enthralled by now with snakes. I'm not
creeped out yet. We haven't really reached the creepy parts.
We'll get to those starting after we get back from
this break. Chuck. Yes, you have the ability to shed
(15:06):
dead skin cells pretty much constantly. It's always they're always
sloughing off. Yeah, we had a great episode on that
we did what was it a skin right? Yeah, but
also did it come up? And does your body regenerate
itself every seven years or something? You're constantly doing that
with skin cells. Snakes um shed their skin as well,
but they do it in a completely different technique, and
(15:30):
they mold. They actually shed their whole outer layers skin
every once in a while. Yeah. Sometimes you'll see that
in the woods and you'll think, oh, well, there was
a snake and now he's not here, but here's his
hollow body or hollow skin. Um. So what they have
is have an elastic skin that attaches to muscles, and
(15:50):
then the scales are made of keratin, the same thing
that our fingernails are made from. And those actually they
the number of scales have doesn't change or the pattern
as they grow. I guess the scales just get larger. Yeah,
and they they replace themselves over time. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Yeah.
So um, when the outer skin of the snakes starts
(16:13):
to get kind of worn down and banged up, the
snake says it's time for some new ones. So they
start reproducing skin cells. But almost these um specialized skin
cells between their outer skin and their inner skin, and
those things form this layer between the two and they liquefy,
which helps kind of. Well, first it makes the outer
(16:34):
skin a little more um shed doble, softens it up,
but it also like separates it from the snake itself,
so they can eventually slide out of it. And it
gets to a point where it starts like rubbing its
chin against a rock like a kitty cat. Yeah, and
like um and like right and like uh, it ends
(16:54):
up degloving its whole body. Basically, Man, you love that word.
It's a great descript it is. And it turns out
and we'll see this as we progress here. But snakes
use rocks and things a lot because they don't have limbs,
and so they'll rub up against that thing, like you said,
and just peel it off and just keep going until
the skin's all gone. And they're like, I got a
(17:15):
new suit, check it out, check out my bow tie,
and I just have to do this again. How often?
Well it depends, this article said, Um, it can happen
anywhere from it can start again a few days later,
a few months later, a few days later. What a
useless species of snake that must be. Like all they
do is mold the whole time. Yeah, Because it takes
(17:35):
about two weeks to complete the molting process, So that
surprised me. They're consumed by the quest for looking young. Yeah,
maybe that's what it is. Um a few months later
makes a little more sense to me. But and I
think it could have been too on how banged up
they get, Like maybe they're forced the molt a few
days later, because it's something like a Steve McQueen snake
(17:56):
would probably mold a lot um aches. Uh. They grow
their entire life, which is another great fact to me,
maybe the best one of the show, but that they
indeterminate growth. Yeah, they never stopped growing. No, they can
just keep growing and growing. Again, it depends on like
how ample their food supply is, what the ambient temperature
(18:17):
is in their environment. But they can just keep on growing. Yeah,
this slows down, they don't grow at the same rate,
but once they reach maturity, they keep on growing. They
can live anywhere from four to years depending on the species,
and probably more than that or less depending on the
hazards in the area. Yes, like people with machetes exactly.
(18:39):
All right, are we to the part? And this I
think is what creeps people out a little bit. It's
how snakes move that's definitely probably the creepiest part about it.
It's one of them. See, I think it's amazing. It
is slightly disconcerting to see because you're used to things
with legs and arms, but when you see that slithering motion,
it definitely like I think for most people it's just
(19:00):
a little bit of a yeah, you know, but if
you stop and look at it, you're like, wow, they
really have that down path. Yeah, it's a wonder of nature.
And there there. Snakes are able to locomote um. Because
there we said they're vertebrates. Their bodies are made up
of scores and scores and hundreds depending on the size
and type of the snake, of um tiny vertebrae that
(19:23):
are attached to pairs of ribs and it goes all
throughout the snake's body. And basically each of these is
a point at which the snake can contort itself. You've
got a bunch of these working together in tandem. The
snake can propel itself forward using a number of different techniques.
They also have what amounts to on their bellies on
(19:43):
their underside, basically tire tread ventral scales. It's pretty neat
and those are used to just uh, I get the feeling.
They just grip on whatever it can grip on and
help it along. So there's four main ways that a
snake propels itself along. The one that um, I think
most is most popular among snakes these days is the
(20:04):
serpentine motion. The serpentine motion, Yeah, the classic s shape
also known as undulatory locomotion. And basically the net contracts
its muscles and it the body is thrust from side
to side and um, it says I'm going, I'm going,
and the snake just takes off like a rocket. Yeah.
And this can be in on in water or on land.
(20:26):
If you've ever been in a lake and seen a snake, uh,
swimming across the water, that'll get you going quick because
those things move really quick in the water. Um. And
a lot of water snakes are poisonous for sure. Yeah
the water. Yeah, we have those here in Georgia. Of course.
What's the other copper heads will get in the creeks
(20:47):
and rivers. Um. So these are because they have no
resistance points. Obviously in the water they can just slink
along quicker. But on the land they use these rocks
and branches and little divots and dents in the landscape.
To uh just you know, propel itself, Like I'm gonna
put my belly on that rock and shoot myself forward
a little bit. Yeah, and then whatever is below my belly,
(21:10):
it's gonna be on the rock and just inches itself along.
We'll not inches. These things can move in some cases
right by inches, well by feet, like the black Mamba thirteen. Wow,
that is so scary because that's a pretty poisonous um snake. Yeah.
I think it's number five on the list, which we'll
get to. Um. There's side winding too, which is crazy. Yeah.
(21:33):
Those are creepy looking. It'll get your dog disqualified in
a UM in a dog show. Yeah, well yeah, is
that one of the big strikes against side gating. Yeah,
for sure. We did one on dog shows, right, yeah
we did. Yeah. It's good for UM for snakes though,
especially ones where there aren't those resistant points like rocks
and branches and leaves that a snake can use to
(21:54):
propel itself. Um, say, like along sand in a sandy desert. Yeah,
that's where I've usually seen side winder. That's where the
sidewinding goes on. Yeah, it's the same s shape, but
it's um. The cool thing about sidewinding to me is
if you slow it down and look closely, the major
portions of the snake's body is off the sand when
it's moving. It's like just sort of check it out. Yeah,
(22:17):
like my fronts on and my backs down. Now my
backs down on, my fronts on, and the whole time
the middle is off the ground. Yeah, there's just basically
like the parts that curved down. Everything else is held up.
Those are the only points in contact with the ground
and trying to hop I get the feeling. Yeah, like
I wish I head legs doing my best here, I'm
doing my best. Um. There's the caterpillar, which I haven't
(22:38):
seen much. Um that is the same rectilinear locomotion, but
it's up and down like creates that rippling effect like
you would see a caterpillar. Um, I don't see that
a whole lot. Well. Yeah, rather than side to side,
the curves are up and down. It's like the breakdancing
move the worm. Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. Uh,
they should have called it the snake. Should And then
(23:01):
my favorite the concertina, which is sort of like the
s but I get the feeling. It's like, uh, when
you see the old hand accordion in a cartoon, like
the front moves forward and then stops, and then the
bat catches up, then the front moves forward again. That's
sort of what it looks like. Yeah, and they use
concertin emotion for um climbing stuff like trees usually. Yeah,
(23:27):
there's another disconcerting thing about snakes that they can climb
trees and then jump out of them. Here we are
saying you shouldn't fear snakes, and all we're doing is
make people fear snakes again. Another cool graphic though on
snake movement on the article here at how stuff works.
All right, so let's talk uh, big snakes. Okay, because
(23:49):
the anaconda, I think everyone knows is the largest snake,
and those things are great swimmers that can weigh as
much as five and fifty pounds. About those things. I
actually enjoyed that dumb movie. I never saw it really,
that was terrible, but terribly good. You know, I had
a really good cast for such a bad movie, like
Owen Wilson and John Foyt and ice Cube j Lo.
(24:13):
I don't know. Marlon Brando, Yeah, he was the snake right. Um.
I always I could do a Brando impression so bad
right now? Oh yeah, which a movie would you do?
I would just do him as a snake. The seed
Mine would have to be as like the Vito Corleone
is a snake because I can only do brand Over
through his movies. That's fine, go ahead, no no, no no, no,
(24:33):
I'm not gonna do it. Okay, Um make a man offler.
It couldn't refuse. That was definitely worth the weight. They
can be up to twelve inches in diameter. And you're
going to find these dudes in uh rivers in South America,
and they spend their time in the water because they're
(24:54):
so large. Uh that's the best way they can get around, right,
They're they're huge. Yeah, so they're again less resistance in
the water, so they've learned to be pretty good swimmers.
And they are quite the hunter. Um. They their eyes
and their nose are on the tops of their heads,
so very much like an alligator or crocodile. They can
be almost completely submerged but still keep an eye on
(25:15):
their prey. They're tough dudes. They're not poisonous. Their constrictors right, yeah.
I think they're related to BoA's. Yeah, they're related to
boas and they can they can hold their breath for
up to ten minutes if they do go underwater, which
is pretty crazy too. But um, what was the um
I even found that article the UM. It was an
article on smith sony and about the Titana Boa. Yeah,
(25:37):
this ancient Uh, I think it was after the dinosaurs, correct, Yeah,
it wasn't that very heavy salad day time after when
all of the former prey of the dinosaurs were allowed
to get huge. One of the things that got huge
was the Titana Boa. It was about fifty six million
years ago. And there's a um a coal pit and
(26:00):
Columbia that is yielded just a trove of fossils from
this era, including the Titana Boa where it was discovered. Yeah,
and I think the remarkable thing about this one, aside
from its size, was that they were able to find
a snake skull, which is a really rare thing apparently
because when skulls, when snake dies, their skull bones just
(26:22):
sort of go away to the wind because they're in
so many little pieces exactly like a human skull is
basically two pieces your lower jaw and the rest of
your skull. Um with a snake skull and we'll get
into why. But there's a like you say, a bunch
of different pieces to them, and yeah, when when they died,
just disintegrates. There's snakes skull parts, but an intex snake skull.
(26:45):
It's rare, very rare. So then to discover an entirely new,
fifty six million year old species of giant snake with
an intext skull was a big deal. And they found
the Titana boa and they figured out that it grew
to about forty long, weighed about a ton. Wow, so
it was about as long as a school bust and
(27:05):
weighed as much as a rhinoceros does. Crazy, and uh,
it could eat gators, turtles, like everything. It's just it
was the king of this Colombian jungle back back in
the day. Yeah, I imagine it would ever wanted to. Yes,
that is I can't imagine. I mean, an anacon of
these days is impressive, right, but a forty foter that's
(27:26):
something else. I mean, it basically is what they were
predicting in the movie Anaconda unwaitingly just probably about forty
in a ton right in that movie? Yeah, really bad
c G. I Yeah, to make it all happen Uh, well,
let's talk about eating a little bit um. One of
the remarkable things about the snake is that it does
(27:48):
swallow its prey hole. And it can do this. And
everyone's seen the snake when they go to unhinge that jaw,
that is what they're doing. They have a very uh
specialized feature and it's called a quadrate bone. And the
upper jaw connects to the lower jaw with this, and
it can unhinge itself, and the rest of the skull
is connected by like muscle intending, so it's it can
(28:10):
get up to like a hundred and fifty degrees wide open, right,
And it's not just the upper jaw and the lower
jaw that can unhinge and get wider. I think, what
do you say a hundred fifty degrees? It also can
expand side to side. So like the bones that make
up the front of the snake's skull are like you said,
connected by bone or by muscle intending, so they can
(28:32):
stretch apart as well. So not only does it get
bigger vertically this, the whole mouth can get bigger horizontally
as well. And it can again, a snake can need
a whole rabbit. That's right, and how it does that
is and this is um how the article describes it.
It opens its mouth and begins to walk it's lower
jaw over the prey as its backward curving teeth grind
(28:54):
up the animal. You know, it just sort of sucks
it in. Right. It depends on the species of snake
whether it has bad akward curving teeth or or not.
But not venomous snakes do have the backward curving teeth
so that the prey can't get out. They can get in,
but they can't get out to check in, but they
don't check out. All along they are crushing um as
(29:16):
the deeper goes in the digestive digestive track, crushing this
thing down um until eventually it's just broken down in
the nutrients, just like eating a regular meal exactly. And again,
it takes a lot more digestive juices to to make
this happen. So the snakes just producing this stuff over time.
Sometimes it takes venom yeah, you know, to subdue this
(29:37):
animal because of a rabbit. It's gonna be like I
don't want to go in that mouth. No, I'm going
to scratch your soft forets like you might get me.
But I'm gonna take part of you down with me.
So that's why they have these um, wicked little things
called fangs, and um, they're in the upper jaw. And
venomous snakes have the two hallmark hollowed out fangs that
(29:58):
are just basically, uh, a delivery system, a sharp little
delivery system. Uh. And they have glands under each eye
called venom ducks, and that's where the good stuff comes from.
They just squeeze it through uh those little little things, right.
And supposedly the venom passes through other glands where more
chemicals are added to it and it becomes this amazing
(30:20):
specialized brew. Um. And apparently each snake species kind of
has its own signature death cocktail. But there are some
toxins that are found in just about all of them. Um,
there's neurotoxins breakdown your nervous system function, including things like breathing.
So that'll that'll stop your we'll stop your life eventually paralysis, right,
(30:45):
you don't even be able to move, which is why
it's a big one that helps them defeed, you know,
because all of a sudden, rabbits like alive, but you know,
has that look in its eye, yes, like I can't move.
What's going on? The time is near. I hate Tuesdays. Uh.
Cardiotoxins are gonna deteriorate the heart and basically say you're
done beating. UM, and then they have hemotoxins and that
(31:08):
will erupt your blood vessels and you're gonna bleed internally.
You know what else I've found it's pretty neat. So
that's Those are venomous snakes. Remember we talked about like
what's the most poisonous animal or venomous animal in the world.
We had an episode on that. Um, there are some
so venomous snake is something that produces its own poison.
There are some snakes that are technically poisonous because they
(31:31):
eat like poisonous tree frogs or something like that, and
they collect the poison from the frogs and store it
and then they use it to catch Preyora's defense later on.
But they're not physically producing their own poison. They're collecting
it and deploying it. And they wouldn't have fangs either
no or else they wouldn't have fangs with the hollowed
(31:52):
out delivery system. Interesting. Uh. When they they do have fangs,
by the way they are, they fold backwards in the mouth.
Did you already say that. No, there's like pockets though
that like are in their gums, the roof of their mouth.
They're hard palate. Oh it's like a little holster. Okay, yeah,
because it's not. It just go right through the bottom
(32:13):
of their mouth and they look pretty funny. Yeah, they
would fang Holster another band name. I knew this is
gonna have a lot of band names. The venom can
also have UM. If you heard our blood episode, uh a,
glutenants and anticoagulants which are either going to make the
blood clot or thin out. Remember in our blood type
(32:34):
episode there was a glute nation was what happens when
you mix unlike blood not good? No, um, And like again,
like you mentioned, this is just another addition to the cocktail.
Um that's added to the other stuff you know. Um.
(32:55):
And then if you want to die another way, you
could be constricted. Yeah, there are boas and anacondas and
they they wrap around you. Well, first they'll they'll get
you in their mouth so you're not moving. Then they'll
wrap around you and you finally exhale, and then they
say that was your last breath, my friend, So long sucker,
(33:17):
because I'm gonna squeeze you so tight You're not gonna
be able to inhale ever again. Yeah, and it's not
just the lungs that they crushed. They also crushed the heart.
They squeeze so tight that the heart is prevented from
contracting and expanding. You ever had a boa constrictor like
on your arm, like friends bet or whatever? Yeah, I
remember the one that um when we were shooting. Oh yeah, yeah,
(33:40):
did did you pull that one? Yeah? I think yeah,
yeah it did. Once in college, I was at a
party and someone had a snake and I was, um,
had a few drinks. It was like, I'm gonna get
over my fearce snakes, and now is the time. And
he let the snake like you know, crawl around me
and wrap around my arm. And I was like all right,
this is awesome and slightly creeped out, but I was like,
(34:01):
all right, I can I can handle this. It wasn't
like you put a tcharanche along on me. No, I
could not handle that. That would be very freaky. Yeah.
All right, Well, after this message break, we are going
to talk a little bit about snake sex. Alright, you
(34:36):
ready to talk snake sex. I'm ready. Man, this is
the creepiest part to me. Oh no, it's not beautiful.
A female snake is the one who sends out the order. Um, hey,
I'm ready to have some sex, right, So I'm gonna
be a pheromones pheromones, and I'm gonna leave a little
trail of pheromones everywhere I go today because today is
(34:58):
the day, all right. And the male snake picks up
that sent and it's like, I'm gonna follow this trail
until I catch up to this lovely lady at the
end of the trail. And then he finally catches up
to her. Apparently the lady snake is just going about
a normal business, but the male snake is like, well,
I know what I'm doing today and following the trail
every where he goes. Um. And when he does catch
(35:20):
up to her, he says, hey, how's it going, And
he does that by like bumping the back of her
head with his chin basically like hey, I think that's hey, yeah,
hey you yeah, pay attention to me, okay. And then
after that, after he's got her attention, um, he also
is like sliding over like back and forth, just basically
(35:42):
being a pest um. And finally, the lady snake, if
she likes the guy, she likes what she sees, she'll
be like, all right, fine and poop up goes the tail.
I wonder if a snake, female snake, ever sees a lizard,
and it's like, oh, man, if only it didn't have
like those arms and hands, what they could do? You know? Um,
(36:05):
I don't think that's what. Snakes don't think like that,
do they. I don't know. All right, So she lifts
her tail and she said, I like you, I'm willing
and able. Um, let's do this. And so they wrap
their tails around each other and they sort of just
intertwined until their cloacas meet up. And that's where it
(36:26):
all happens, my friend, that's where it all happens. The
male snakes hemy peens, which is his reproductive organ, uh says,
here's some sperm that you got a hemmy, it's funny.
Uh yeah, He delivers sperm through his hemmy peen. Why
(36:46):
is this so awkward? I don't know. So yes, the
hemmy peens delivers the sperm and the female becomes fertilizeday,
and now they can make baby snakes or lay eggs. Yeah,
this is intus like some of them do both. Yeah,
and that that I thought that was unusual. It would
seem like, I don't know, in nature, usually don't have
(37:07):
one or the other, you know, or both. Yeah, I
mean like maybe like this kind of animal, like a
bird lays an egg, but a panda bear lays has
live young. Right, there aren't pan bears that can also
lay eggs or have live young. That just seems a
little too random. Different egg hatch would be about the
(37:30):
cutest thing that would break the internet. If a little
panda bear hatch from an egg it was like two pounds,
that would be pretty cute. Um. So if they have
live young, they can give birth to anywhere from one
to a hundred and fifty snakes, which is uh, you know,
might be some people's nightmare. Yeah. Like remember that part
in Indiana Jones and Tempily Doom not Raiders, No, it
(37:53):
was the they were at the feast at the maharaj
Is people and they bring out that snake and slice
it open all the alive. Oh yeah, yeah, man, they
make good snakes. I forgot because in Raiders the famous
asps um Hey that was a good uh sala was
(38:13):
that his name. I think so right. I don't know, man,
I'm gonna get killed for that one. If it's not UM.
If they lay eggs, they can hatch them internally, hold
them internally until they hatch or give birth to the egg,
and then the egg will hatch UM. And like you said,
that's it's sort of the combination method. If they hold
the eggs internally UM, and they take care of their young,
(38:37):
but not really like forever. Like sometimes they'll even leave
the eggs before they hatch. Sometimes they'll stick around and
protect them for a little while. So it sort of depends.
It depends on the species. I guess the reason why
they would have so many different qualities in the same
like family, UM is that they've been around for like
(39:00):
a hundred and sixty million years. Yeah, and the variety
of their distribution all over the world. Yeah. So speaking
of variety, like we said, just five percent of snakes
and poisonous, but the ones that are poisonous can be
really really poisonous. Yeah, just not just mildly poisonous, but
like really deadly poisonous. Well you mean venomous still are poisonous,
(39:25):
thank you? Yeah, I mean venomous you're absolutely right. Yeah.
I found a list of most venomous snakes um, and
lucky for us here in the US of A, in
Canada and Mexico, we only have the rattlesnake to contend with. Well,
wait a minute, I thought we had like water moccasins
and copperas No, as far as the most venomous, like
a water moccasin bite, you'll be fine. Oh really, I
(39:46):
didn't know that. I thought it was like deadly. No. Well,
I mean if you just like went back and watch TV, maybe,
but you go to the doctor. It's not like I'm
gonna die in thirty minutes, because it's all about what
it comes down to is how eddy the venom is?
Like I got bit by a watermark. But judge duty
is on what am I gonna do? Decisions, decision. I
(40:09):
gotta see this verdict Um, the Eastern diamond back is
the most venomous in North America. And that was the
one that I encountered. My snake story. When I was
a kid, we were looking at property with my parents
in the North Georgia Mountains and my brother and I
were running ahead and there was a rattlesnake, a big, big,
rattlesnake coiled and ready to go, and your brother just
(40:30):
pulled us six shooters shot it once in the head
and like toil is gun and put it back right now.
The old mountain man came in with a stick like
just from nowhere, like running behind us, and one jab
got the head. Geez. Yeah, it was scary man. And
looking back, I'm like, I wish you hadn't killed the snake,
but we were. We were four ft from this thing
(40:51):
and it was completely coiled with his head up like
he was ready to go. Yeah, he could have totally
gotten this. Uh. Number nine is the death adder in
Austra Eliot in New Guinea, and they kill other snakes.
But if you happen upon them, you will notice their
triangular shaped head, which is always a dead giveaway usually
that that's not a good snake or not again a
(41:12):
good snake, but not one you want to like to
play with. And by the way, Chuck, if you had
a um you encountered the four ft rattlesnake, you could
expect a striking distance of two thirds of his body
length is usually the rule of thumb for a rattlesnake.
We were probably close to striking distance then man, Yeah,
that's scary. Uh. We were out in the woods too.
(41:34):
That wouldn't have been a pretty scene, you know. Um,
the old mountain man would have just had to put
you down immediately. Now he was just laid on your face.
He probably would have done the old suck it out
with his mouth and spit, which I think is not
the way to do it from what I understand. UM,
vipers are next number eight. China, India, Southeast Asia, Central Asia,
(41:56):
Middle East, very fast, very ill tempered. The Philippine cobra.
I didn't know this. Cobras generally aren't, um. I mean,
they're venomous, but their venom isn't among the most deadly,
like you could go watch TV for a little while. No,
probably not. But the Philippine cobra is the exception. Um.
(42:17):
They have the most deadly venom of all the cobras,
very narrow, toxic. There's the tiger snake. Yeah, uh, this
one can kill you within thirty minutes. Yeah, supposedly pretty quick.
And before there was such thing as anne vent and
tiger snakes killed at a rate of about six Also
in Australia. By the way, as you'll notice that as
(42:39):
a trend, and when we talked about the most venomous creatures,
Australia was always around. We have our black Mamma which
we talked about in Africa, very aggressive, very fast, and
they can strike up to twelve times in a row
and a single bite is capable of killing anywhere between
ten and twenty five adults, very deadly. It's super deadly.
(43:00):
It's still not the deadliest though, is that Nope, there's
several more. Number four, the taipan Uh, also in Australia,
can kill twelve thousand guinea pigs um with a single bite.
That's like, that's what they compare calories too as well.
(43:20):
It's like eight guinea pigs where the calories um. The
blue k r a i t the blue crate malaysian
um and it is the most deadly of that species
in South Southeast Asian Indonesia. Fifty of the bites even
with anti ven and you will die. That is so scary.
(43:42):
That's super scary. That is a that is a deadly
deadly snake. Number two, the Eastern brown one fourteen thousand
of an ounce is enough to kill an adult human
and um, they live. The scary thing about them is
they live in Australia near a major population center. So
those are the ones I think that you can go
(44:04):
out and find like the second most deadly snake in
the world in your yard or like a bar or
something like that at work. Can you imagine that man?
And number one the inland taipe in or the fierce snake.
And this is another subspecies, but they put it on
the list because they just said it deserves to be there,
(44:25):
and um, it is the most toxic venom in in
the world. Hundred and ten milligrams of venom in one
bite is enough to kill about one human beings or
five million guinea picks. The good thing about this one, though,
is it's not super aggressive and you're not going to
see one very much. It's rare to even encounter one.
For that reason, they don't have any fatalities on record.
(44:47):
Oh really yeah on record? Uh? And what was that
list from? Was that I O nine or was it
a list verse? Let's verse lest verse put it together
for ut Man. Yeah, double check, though I think it's
pretty accurate. I'd say just any of those ten um
avoiding the wild, don't kill him that unless you have to, right,
(45:08):
you know, but always hike with a flamethrower. Chucks, Have
you ever heard there's no snakes in Ireland? No? Is
that a saying? Oh? Yes? St. St Patrick supposedly drove
all the snakes out of Ireland. That's one of the
reasons he got so famous. He did not do that
because there are snakes in Ireland, of course, right, No, oh,
there really aren't. There are in like zoos and and
(45:28):
and in people's homes. But no, there's no snakes in
the wild in Ireland. Seriously, what about England, Scotland and Wales.
I think that there may be, But Ireland, when snakes
were developing, was underwater and snakes never made it over there.
So there really aren't snakes in Ireland as far as
I can tell. But are there in Scotland and England?
I'm guessing yes, surely one has crossed the border. And
(45:52):
I mean like the fact that there are some like
in zoos and people's homes mean that there eventually will
be because you know, like down in Florida, people would
like take pythons that they had as pets and just
release them in the everylades. And now that every lads
have a really large python population, a non named python population.
People are stupid and they didn't realize that that Python
(46:12):
was gonna get large exactly. Yeah, yep, go humans. Uh,
you got anything else? That's it, man, That's snakes. That's
all I got. You got anything else? All right? Well,
since we have nothing else, we want you to go
learn more about snakes. You can type the words snakes
in the search bart how stuff works dot com and
check out our podcast page for this episode with all
(46:33):
sorts of cool extra links. And since I said cool,
it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys, my name
is Kristen. I'm gonna call this. Hey guys, my name
is Kristen Lupus slash lupus. I want to send an
email thanking both of you, even though my relatively new fan,
I really think you're saving my life. A year and
(46:55):
a half ago, at twenty two, I was diagnosed with lupus,
which is a progressive auto I mean disease, and about
six eight months ago I started also struggling with the depression.
My boyfriend Ross tried every trick in the book, and
eventually I was I wasn't even getting out of bed.
I started to have passive suicidal idealization. It's a very
dark time. My family really joined together to get me
(47:16):
help though. I have a great psychiatrist, great therapist, and
I'm proud to say I am recovering. Uh. YouTube factor
in because my boyfriend recommended I listened to podcast on
panic attacks. He found to be a really helpful tool
when he was trying to figure out how to help
me cope. Uh. I couldn't leave my bed, but I
did have my iPhone, so I listened, and I kept
listening and kept listening for days. Eventually I started laughing again,
(47:40):
and then started looking at the articles related to topics
of the podcast and being like, this is like the
same thing, and it really gave me something new and
positive to talk about with my friends and family. I
listened to the show when I feel like I'm going
to have an episode of panic. It helps me to
breathe and to laugh. Oh that is so cool. It is.
It stimulates my brain and keeps me thinking, wondering, in
and awe of all sorts of awesome things. So thank
(48:02):
you for your help, and please keep up the amazing work.
I still have plenty of content to get through, but
I hope that's two of you keep making the podcast
for plenty time to come. We will. We have no
plans to stop anytime soon. And that is from Christin
Wolf and she's a native Atlanta, but she is in Washington,
d C. So Kristin, he should come out and see
our show in June in Washington, d C. Yeah, talk
(48:26):
about relaxing. Way do you see it alive? Well? Yeah,
but it's also extremely exciting too. Yeah that's true. Um,
thanks a lot, Christen for chuning that. We're glad we
got to help you out. And thanks for Ross the
Boyfriend for helping around Ross. Yeah, I mean, nice job. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us to
let us know anything, how we've helped you out, how
(48:47):
we messed you up, whatever, um, you can tweet to
us at s y s K podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
how stuff Works dot com and check out our home
on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for
(49:08):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
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