Only venomous snakes have teeth right? Today, we are going to debunk some common reptile myths
[Snake Discovery Intro]
Since you're now thinking of it let's talk about that first myth,
which is only venomous snakes have teeth.
This is not true.
The only species of snake that doesn't have teeth,
is the egg eating snake because it swallows eggs.
But all other snakes do in fact have teeth.
And not only do they have some teeth, they have a lot of teeth.
Six rows to be exact. Snakes have four rows two on either side of their upper jaw, or maxilla,
and they have two rows of teeth on their lower jaw, or mandible
one row on each side
That's a lot of teeth.
And their teeth curved backwards like hooks, or fangs you could say,
they're fang shaped teeth to assist in eating.
Those teeth help guide the prey item down the throat of the snake.
in addition to those teeth,
truly venomous snakes and mildly venomous snakes,
like the giant Madagascar hognose have enlarged teeth,
or specialized enlarged teeth known as fangs.
So not only do the venomous and mildly venomous snakes have teeth
but all snakes do,
with the one exception of the egg eating snake.
our next myth is that vertical pupils mean the snake is venomous
That is also not true.
the shape of a pupil only indicates at what time of day the snake is active during.
Vertical slit shaped pupils means the snake is nocturnal, or active at night
Whereas round pupils means the snake is active during the daytime, or it is diurnal
For example, if you think of ball pythons, they have vertically oriented pupils, but they're not venomous,
So right then there that myth is debunked.
They are just a merely a nocturnal species of snake.
Where is a snake like this giant Madagascar hognose has round pupils,
Which means she is active during the daytime, or she is diurnal.
There is a third type of behavior called crepuscular
Meaning that the animal is awake, our most active during dawn and at dusk
and for these, I've found that they typically have round pupils,
Garter snakes are a great example of a crepuscular snake,
Since they are most active at dawn and dusk.
The next myth is that all snakes are slimy.
if you've ever touched a snake you that this myth is not true.
You just have to briefly touch one to realize," No, that's not slimy"
I think the myth originates from people thinking frogs are slimy,
And so they assume that snakes must be too because they're the same thing right?
when I'm working with kids,
I usually tell them that snakes feel like basketballs.
Because they honestly feel like basketballs.
They're not slimy in the least.
Our next myth is that snakes sting with their tails or their tongues.
I don't quite know where this one originated from
other than maybe their tongue has you know forked ends to it
and their tail does come to kind of a sharper looking point,
So people may have assumed that those were stingers, but they're not stingers
The end of their tail is just another scale and their tongue is just a tongue that's used for smelling purposes
Although on some species of snakes like bull snakes, I have found that at the end of their tail
They do have kind of a sharper feeling scale?
So maybe that's where people think it might be a stinger, but there is no stinging involved with their tail
It's just another scale at the end of their body
So speaking of bull snakes, really?
I'll just I keep mine out with me now.
The next myth is that snakes will measure up potential prey items
There's a lovely story out there
That explains how there was a woman once who owned a large Python,
and it stopped eating when she started allowing it to sleep in the bed next to her.
She noticed that it started lining itself up lengthwise against her body
And so she talked to her vet and the vet said that it was
Sizing her up to eat her, and it wasn't eating because it was waiting until I had enough room to fit the human.
This is completely bogus. That is not a true story
I have no idea where that story originated from, but it is kind of amusing if you think about it though,
Snakes as cute as they are, are not very bright animals
They're not going to go up and measure themselves alongside their prey to see if they can handle it,
they are ambush predators and opportunistic feeders, which means,
if a potential prey walks by them and they notice that they can handle it
They're just gonna eat it right then and there there's really no thinking or contemplating involved.
and if you think about it,
They're not going to go up to say a rabbit and say,
"hold still rabbit, I want to see if I can handle you first by aligning myself up next to you,
and if I can, then eat you."
you know pray isn't gonna sit still to allow a predator to determine whether it wants to eat it or not,
It's gonna take off.
so for both of those reasons,
That myth is false. That whole story is false
Our next myth is that snakes don't have bones.
You'd be surprised when you ask people if snakes have bones,
how many of them say, "No, they don't have bones. It's just cartilage"
That's not true. They do in fact have bones
they are vertebrates meaning they have a
Vertebral column down their back and they have between 200 and 400
Of those back vertebrae each with a set of rib bones attached to it.
That means they have between, if my math is correct,
600 and 1,200 bones just in their backbone and rib bones alone
That's a lot of bones.
That allows them to be able to move and have the flexibility that they do.
Let's mix it up a little bit and talk about turtles.
If a turtle gets rolled onto its back, tt will suffocate and die.
Now, it is true that they have a tough time breathing if they are on their back since their
Diaphragms aren't meant to support the amount of weight on their shell when they're in an upside down position
However, the fact that they get stuck on their back is the myth.
So let me prove this to you, I have my map turtle here
I pulled her out just to show you this.
We're gonna see if they are in fact stuck on their backs.
Maybe they are
Nope, not stuck on their backs.
As you see turtles have a very long neck that they use to stretch out,
and push with their snout on the surface to just flip back over.
They also rely on their back feets to help kind of give them that extra nudge
But tortoises are able to do the same thing.
Let's do it one more time from a different angle.
*you can do it turtle*
Nope they are definitely not stuck on their back.
Our last myth for today,
Is that big snakes only need to eat once or twice a year right?
That is also not true.
Although some species of large pythons can go long periods of time without eating,
they prefer not to.
Snakes should be eating once every week, to every four weeks
depending on their species, their size, and their meal size
And it's better for a snake to feed them more frequent, but smaller meals
rather than less frequent but larger meals.
It keeps their metabolism going at a better rate, just like it does with humans.
This is Doug, my boa constrictor as you can see he's in shed right now
Everything always decides to shed when I'm filming it seems
but he only eats once every three, to sometimes every four weeks for me
I have heard of some people feeding their adult boa constrictors every other week
But usually those Boas are really fat and so I strive to make sure I don't have an overweight boa,
instead, he's just muscle.
that will be the last myth for today's video,
I hope you enjoyed this kind of different style of video today
if you did
let me know in the comments below and maybe I'll make a part two,
because we all know there are tons of misconceptions when it comes to snakes and other reptiles
Thank you for watching today's myth debunking video, and we'll see you next time
[Outro]