88 Savage Facts About Snakes That’ll Give You Nightmares

On April 1, 2007, Google sent an email to its employees warning that a python was loose in its New York Office. It was not a joke.

27. If two rattlesnakes fight, they don’t use their fangs to poison the other.

28. In 2009, a Florida couple was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter of their daughter after their pet Burmese python escaped its cage and squeezed the two-year-old to death.

29. Rattlesnake antivenom costs $20,000 per vial. One Florida boy needed 75-80 vials, which adds up to about $1.6 million

30. The muscle that causes a rattlesnake to rattle fires 50 times a second for up to 3 hours or 520,000 rattles without stopping

A pastor died in 1983 after handling a timber rattlesnake during a Pentecostal service. About 29 years later his son died in the exact same way.

32. Anacondas mate in a giant "breeding ball" with 1 female and up to 12 males, and they stay in that position for over a month.

33. Up until the early 1900's, there was an extensive population of Rattlesnakes in the Bronx. They were wiped out when Farmers let their pigs hunt them.

34. European Hedgehogs actually hunt Adders tiring them out by chasing them and biting them many times, then breaking their necks when the Adders can't run anymore.

35. There have been 14 known fatalities in Britain from native adder bites since 1876. Recovery from a bite can take up to a year.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has, since the early 20th century, offered a large cash reward (currently worth US$50,000) for live delivery of any snake of 9 meters (30 ft) or more in length, but the prize has never been claimed, despite the numerous sightings of giant anacondas.

37. Sonoran Coral Snake, instead of hissing or rattling, farts when threatened

38. The northern copperhead snake smells like cucumbers

39. When a snake in the Tokyo Zoo was given a live hamster (as a meal), they two became "best friends."

40. 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.

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.

42. 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.

43. 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.

44. 50,000 people a year die from snakebites, but only about 5 die in Australia, where the deadliest snakes live.

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

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.

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

48. 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.

49. 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.

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