100 Interesting Facts About Snakes

The decapitated head of a dead snake can still bite hours after death. Because dead snakes can't regulate how much venom they inject, such bites can often contain large amounts of venom.

52. Brown tree snakes, when inadvertently introduced to Guam from the Solomon Islands, have eaten the entire island population of native birds and bats. To combat the population of snakes, the government has dropped dead mice packed with Tylenol into Guam's dense jungle canopy.

53. Ball pythons are treated with great care when they happen to wander into a Nigerian village. They are allowed to roam freely or gently picked up and placed out in a forest or field. If one is accidentally killed, many towns build a coffin for the snake's remains and give it a short funeral.

54. The largest Chinese restaurant in the world seats 5,000 people, employs more than 300 chefs and goes through 700 chickens and 200 snakes in a week.

55. 50,000 people a year die from snakebites, but only about 5 die in Australia, where the deadliest snakes live.

The heads of two-headed snakes fight over food if the vision of each other is not blocked while being fed.

57. Many snakes are venomous, the Tiger Keelback Snake is the only snake species that is also poisonous. They sequester toxins from poisonous toads they eat and ooze it out of glands on the backs of their necks.

58. Some snakes experience forces upwards of 28 Gs. For reference, fighter jet pilots experience 2-5 Gs when taking off.

59. Left-spiraling snails are generally as rare as left-handed humans, especially because left and right spiraled snails can't mate together easily, but in Japan, snakes gobble up righties easily but can't bite into the lefties, so there are way more lefties.

60. There have never been snakes in Ireland because being cold-blooded, they couldn’t survive the frozen ground during the ice age in the past.

Some owls keep blind snakes in their nests as helpful associates, reducing the abundance of nest parasites.

62. Ringneck snakes are venomous.

63. An Inland Taipan in the world is the most venomous snake in the world. One dose can kill 289 people. Second place can kill 65. By comparison, the Indian King Cobra can kill ten.

64. The Band ZZ Top during one of their live stage shows decided to have a mixture of live animals, including vultures, buffaloes, and rattlesnakes on stage, but the buffalo rammed into a tank full of rattlesnakes and released them live on stage.

65. Vava Suresh of India, who has caught 30,000 snakes including 300 king cobras, has survived over 250 snake bites and has had to be put on the ventilator at least five times, declined a government job offer, because then he would not be able to help people when the need arises.

King Cobras aren't actually true cobras and are called that because their diet consists of other snakes, including Cobras.

67. An Indonesian pop star died on stage earlier this year after she was bitten by the snake she was dancing with she kept performing for 45 minutes before succumbing to the cobra’s venom

68. A snake's heart can move around its body to protect it from harm when it's eaten large prey

69. In 1978, a dangerous cult called Synanon tried to murder an opponent by placing a de-rattled rattlesnake in his mailbox. The snake did bite Attorney Paul Morantz, but he survived and went on to prosecute Synanon, as well as Church of Scientology, Hare Krishnas, and more.

70. The mimic octopus can change into more than 15 different shapes, including snake, stingray, lionfish, and furry turkey.

If a snake gets too hot then it may get so confused that it mistakes its tail for prey, and tries to eat itself until it dies.

72. When Biagio complained about the naked figures in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo in response, painted him as the judge of the underworld covering is a naked body with a snake and donkey ears.

73. The animal that kills the most humans each year is the Mosquito at 725,000 deaths, followed by Humans at 475,000, and then Snakes causing 50,000 deaths per year.

74. Due to a robust immune system, Opossums are immune to a variety of deadly snake venom

75. Snake Oil was a real product sold by the Clark Stanley company, and in 1917 the U.S. Govt. had a bottle of it tested, but discovered that it contained inert ingredients and no actual oils extracted from snakes. The government sued and won damages of $20.