Snakes

When scientists in southern Brazil turned over a rock looking for tarantulas, they came across something they'd never expected: a spider eating a snake.

A tarantula (Grammostola quirogai) chows down on a Almaden ground snake (Erythrolamprus almadensis) in southern Brazil. And here are the gory photos of the feat.

Baseline stress, not the trauma of capture, influences if snakes bite.

A Burmese python treated the Florida Everglades like an all-you-can-eat buffet after it ate three deer in a mere three months, a new study finds.

A Burmese python in the Everglades with a penchant for venison gulped down three whole deer — one doe and two fawns — before wildlife officials captured and euthanized it, a new study reveals.

A critter heralded as the first four-legged fossil snake on record may actually not be a snake, new research finds.

More than 1,300 kids are bitten by snakes each year in the U.S. — and an increasing number of these bites come from the venomous copperhead snake (Agkistrodon contortrix), a new study finds.

Rattlesnake ancestors had venom that attacked the blood, muscles and nerves.

Combat between two different viper species has never been observed — until now.

The newfound pitviper lives in a Costa Rican cloud forest and kills prey with a neurotoxin also used by rattlesnakes.

If predators come calling, a red-eyed tree frog embryo can drop out of its egg to safety in a matter of seconds.

Most snakes have an excellent sense of smell, in part to make up for their poor eyesight and limited hearing.

A humongous reticulated python measuring more than 26 feet (8 meters) long was captured at a Malaysian construction site last week, but the snake died three days later while laying an egg.

A fossilized snake that lived 10 million years ago retained cell structures that revealed to scientists the colors that would have dappled its skin while the animal was alive.

The Burmese python has worn out its welcome, and its time is nigh.

Things got pretty weird this year.

Two species of venomous sea snakes that were thought to be extinct have been discovered slithering off the coast of western Australia.