What are the characteristics of snakes' living habits? A detailed explanation in one article

1. Where do most snakes live?

There are many kinds of snakes. Different snake species have different habitats. But most snakes like to live where the temperature is suitable and not far from water, hiding in their burrows and coming out to move and forage after nightfall, but a few snakes also come out during the day, such as the Oriental ratsnake (Zaocys dhumnades), the Chinese water snake, and the twin-spotted ratsnake.

2. What living habits do snakes have?

Snakes are cold-blooded animals and are relatively sensitive to the temperature of the surrounding environment. An outside temperature of 20-30°C is suitable for snake growth; when the temperature is around 25-32°C, they come out of their burrows and move about fairly frequently; when the temperature drops to 20-13°C, snakes will instinctively seek warm places; above 33°C, they seek shady places or climb into pools and ditches to soak and cool off. On bright early-spring days, when the temperature rises above 18°C, snakes like to come out of their burrows around noon to bask in the sun; after a summer rainstorm, especially at night, especially many come out of their burrows to get some air, almost the whole nest emerging at once.

Snakes that come out at other times, such as "abnormally" during the day, are mostly weak or sick snakes, and should be isolated and treated promptly. But there are exceptions, namely that a few healthy male snakes also like to come out of their burrows during the day. Healthy snakes and sick snakes are very easy to tell apart by appearance.

3. Why do snakes have the habit of hibernation (aestivation)?

Snakes are relatively primitive cold-blooded animals. They have no sweat glands themselves and cannot regulate their own body temperature; their body temperature changes with the temperature of their habitat. When the outside environmental temperature drops, the metabolism in the snake's body decreases, and its activity level drops markedly, to the point of not eating, not drinking and not moving, remaining in a drowsy state, spending the long winter in the form of "hibernation." This is also a natural genetic phenomenon that snakes have continued over the long term, or a primitive instinctive behavior for resisting harsh climates.

In the hot summer, when the temperature rises above 32°C, snakes, because they cannot endure the continuously high temperatures, also enter a brief stage of "aestivation." The timing differs between north and south, depending entirely on the local temperature. Once a snake enters "aestivation," it is just like a "hibernating" snake: it neither eats food nor sheds its skin, adopting a very passive and limited way of supplying nutrition, so as to get through the high heat of midsummer.

4. Can snakes' hibernation (aestivation) habits be broken?

Snakes' hibernation (aestivation) can be broken, but only if corresponding conditions provide reliable guarantees, such as the country's advanced laboratories or the snake exhibition halls of large zoos. Ordinary farmers are not suited to breaking "hibernation" to raise snakes; if conditions are forced to break "hibernation" that way, especially for farmers with relatively small numbers of animals, it will be very uneconomical.

If you want to solve snakes' "aestivation," it is much easier: before midsummer arrives each year, you should plant flowers and grass in time and build melon trellises. But sometimes this still will not be as one wishes; the best method is to install shade netting. When doing so, you can only cover a small part of the snake enclosure; you must never cover the entire snake enclosure, otherwise, because the walls are too high and the cover is too tight, it will lead to poor ventilation and directly affect the air convection of the snake enclosure and snake burrows. Especially in the plum rain season of midsummer, if moisture cannot dissipate in time, it will cause excessive humidity in the snake enclosure or snake burrows, and in serious cases it will also trigger snakes' mildew spot disease. Therefore, shade netting must be used properly to ensure that snakes have no "aestivation" in midsummer, achieving the goal of gaining weight without losing condition.

5. Are snakes' habitats all the same?

In the long process of reproduction, survival and evolution, in order to adapt to changes in external living conditions, snakes have formed habitat habits that differ from environment to environment, ranging from small rock crevices to large stone caves, grave caves and tree hollows. The first prerequisite for their choice of habitat is: the habitat must have suitable temperature, be not far from water, have good concealment, and have abundant food sources nearby, such as many frogs, rodents, birds, @#@260@#@, insects, etc. Because snake species differ, the specific habitats also differ greatly, and can be roughly divided into 5 types: ground-dwelling, arboreal, aquatic, burrowing, and sea-dwelling.

(1) Ground-dwelling snakes: Most snakes belong to the ground-dwelling category. The main characteristic of this type of snake is wide ventral scales and rapid, agile movement on the ground. Examples include the five-paced pit viper, the Chinese copperhead, the purple sand snake, the king cobra, the beautiful coral snake, the bamboo pit viper, the white-headed viper, and the king ratsnake, which live in mountainous areas. The mamushi, the viper, the cobra, the banded krait, the many-banded krait, the white-lipped bamboo pit viper, the yellow-spined racer, the black mildew ratsnake, the brown-black ratsnake, the Oriental ratsnake, and the red chain snake mostly live in plains and hilly areas. The sand boa and the flower-striped snake mostly live in desert and barren wilderness areas.

(2) Arboreal snakes: The main characteristics of arboreal snakes are: slender body, also slender tail, extremely good at coiling and climbing, large eyes, relatively well-developed vision, wide ventral scales, and relatively obvious lateral ridges on both sides. They spend most of their time perched on trees, shrubs, branches or trunks, such as the green vine snake, the jade-green snake, the golden tree snake, the many-flowered forest snake, and the twisted-flower forest snake. The bamboo pit viper, the Chinese copperhead and the red chain snake also often climb on trees, but not as freely as the former. The "Snake Island" mamushi also belongs to the arboreal category.

(3) Aquatic snakes: Aquatic snakes spend most of their time, or their entire lives, moving and foraging in water areas such as streams and ditches, rice paddies, ponds and reservoir areas. Their characteristics are a thick, short body, with the tail suddenly becoming slender after the cloaca, similar to the tail of a venomous snake, underdeveloped ventral scales, and nostrils located on the dorsal side of the snout. This type of snake includes the Chinese water snake, the fishing snake, the lead-colored water snake, and the water red chain snake.

(4) Burrowing snakes: The snakes related to burrowing life are mostly relatively primitive and lower small and medium-sized snakes. Their characteristics are a small head, small mouth, short slender tail, and underdeveloped eyes and ventral scales. Their pattern of activity is to crawl onto the ground at night or in dark weather, such as the sunbeam snake and the blind snake.

(5) Sea-dwelling snakes: The greatest characteristic of this type of snake is that it lives in the ocean throughout its life; its tail has evolved into a laterally flattened shape, its nostrils are on the dorsal side of the snout, its trunk is slightly laterally flattened, and its ventral scales are underdeveloped or even completely degenerated. Sea snakes are all highly venomous snakes. Examples include the flat-tailed sea snake, the long-snouted sea snake, the blue-banded sea snake, and the flat-necked sea snake.

6. How do sea snakes excrete the salt in their bodies?

The salt content of seawater is above 3%. Sea snakes can excrete the large amount of salt they drink into their bodies because sea snakes have salt glands that land snakes do not have. Their salt glands grow under the tongue of the sea snake, that is, the posterior sublingual gland of the lower jaw. It has many ducts leading to the oral tongue sheath. Excess salt flows into the tongue sheath through the salt glands in the form of secretions, and is carried out whenever the sea snake flicks its tongue, so that the excess salt in the sea snake's body is excreted from the body.