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Snakes

Find out everything there is to know about snakes and stay updated on the latest snake news with the comprehensive articles, interactive features and snake pictures at LiveScience.com. Learn more about these fascinating creatures as scientists continue to make amazing discoveries about snakes.

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entire skeleton of Tetrapodophis

Unexpected Step: Snake Ancestor Had Four Feet

By Laura Geggel

The oldest snake fossil on record looks almost like a modern snake, except for one glaring difference: It has four feet, each with five digits, a new study finds.

four legged snakes, Tetrapodophis

Photos: Weird 4-Legged Snake Was Transitional Creature

By Laura Geggel

Snakes used to have four legs, according to a roughly 120-million-year-old fossil from northeastern Brazil.

Boa constrictor

Myth Debunked: Boa Constrictors Don't Suffocate Prey to Death

By Laura Geggel

python, porcupine

Python Eats Porcupine, Regrets It Later (Here's Why)

By Elizabeth Palermo

python, porcupine

In Images: Hungry Python Eats Porcupine Whole

By Elizabeth Palermo

Ever wonder what might happen if a python ate a porcupine?

ancestral snake illustration

Snake Ancestor Had Ankles and Toes

By Laura Geggel

garter snake plug

Male Snakes Spend Mega Calories When They Mate

By Laura Geggel

Every spring, red-sided garter snakes leave their hibernation burrows to engage in a frenzied jumble of mating. But doing the deed is no easy feat for males.

Like other pit vipers, copperhead snakes give birth to live young.

Fact or Fiction? Test Your Knowledge About Snakes

By Matt Shipman

Black mamba, snake, venom

Black Mamba Facts

By Jessie Szalay

The black mamba is one of the fastest and deadliest snakes in the world. Two drops of its venom can kill a person.

indian cobra

Facts About Cobras

By Jessie Szalay

Cobras are large, venomous snakes with a trademark hood. They hiss and spit and can raise the upper part of their bodies high enough to look you in the eye.

rattlesnake, rattlesnake bite, snakes

Rattlesnake Facts

By Jessie Szalay

Rattlesnakes are found throughout North and South America. Their distinctive rattle warns intruders to stay away!

Copperhead snake

Copperhead Snakes: Facts, Bites & Babies

By Jessie Szalay

Copperhead snakes are common in North America, and have the distinction of biting more people in the United States than any other snake.

Viper Vertebrae

Biggest Venomous Snake Ever Revealed in New Fossils

By Stephanie Pappas

Python embryo

How Sex Organs Get Their Start

By Megan Gannon

New research shows how external genitals arose from very different starting places for reptiles and mammals.

a garter snake matinb ball

Animal Sex: How Snakes Do It

By Joseph Castro

Snake sex involves mating balls, battles similar to arm-wrestling and, sometimes, asexual reproduction.

The Carnegie Mellon snake robot.

Snake Robots! Slithering Machines Could Aid Search-and-Rescue Efforts

By Elizabeth Palermo

One snake's ability to shimmy up slippery sand dunes made it the perfect subject for a new study aimed at getting robots out of the lab and into the real world.

A boa constrictor slithers up a tree.

Get a Death Grip! Why Snakes Don't Slip When Climbing Trees

By Joseph Castro

northern pine snake

Splat! Why Some Snakes Are Easy Roadkill

By Laura Geggel

snakes, forked tongue, senses

Explainer: Why Do Snakes Flick Their Tongues?

By Andrew Durso

Theories explaining the forked tongues of snakes have been around for thousands of years.

nsf, sl, animal robotics

Snake Facts & Types of Snakes

By Alina Bradford

There are more than 3,000 species of snakes in the world and there is at least one type of snake on every continent except Antarctica.