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Snakes

Incredible: A Gaboon Viper Strikes a Bird in Slo-Mo

Gaboon vipers don’t have the fastest strike in the snake world—but they don’t need to be faster than other snakes, just their prey

What Can a Puff Adder Snake Bite Do to a Rhino?

A puff adder’s bite can do serious damage, even to an animal with skin as thick as a rhino’s. The photographic evidence we have is not pretty

A Hungry Snake Finds a Whole Colony of Sociable Weavers

Nesting in close proximity to each other has a lot of advantages for sociable weavers

These are the creatures snakes have nightmares about.

The Animals That Venom Can’t Touch

Meet the creatures who look into the face of venomous death and say: Not today

Just a fraction of the nearly 25,000 pounds of diamondback rattlesnakes displayed at the 2016 Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas.

Trending Today

Controversial Texas Rattlesnake Roundup Nets Largest Catch to Date

One of the world’s largest rattlesnake roundup bagged nearly 25,000 pounds of rattlers this year

A nonvenomous Texas rat snake coils up in a defensive posture.

New Research

To Scientists’ Surprise, Even Nonvenomous Snakes Can Strike at Ridiculous Speeds

The Texas rat snake was just as much of a speed demon as deadly vipers, challenging long-held notions about snake adaptations

This yellow-bellied watersnake gave birth without male contact in the last eight years.

Cool Finds

In Nature, Virgin Births Are Pretty Common

Fish do it, bugs do it, even some species of snakes do it

This photo of two short-nosed sea snakes alerted researchers to the species' survival, even though they were thought to be extinct for 15 years.

New Research

They’re Back: Supposedly Extinct Sea Snakes Have Been Found in Australia

Nearly 15 years later and about 1,000 miles away from the last sighting, the snakes could be making a comeback

Cool Finds

Yet Another Highly-Venomous Snake Discovered in Australia

The Kimberley death adder is one of the most venomous snakes in the world

Trending Today

Why A Single Vial Of Antivenom Can Cost $14,000

It’s not because all antivenom is expensive to make.

Corythomantis greeningi frogs carry potent venom in their pouts.

Ask Smithsonian

What’s the Difference Between Poisonous and Venomous Animals?

The first known venomous frogs, discovered in Brazil, raise some basic questions about toxic biology

Boa constrictors seem to deliver death not through suffocation, but by cutting off blood flow to the heart and brain.

New Research

Boa Constrictors Kill By Stopping Blood Circulation

The popular belief that boas and other constricting snakes deal death by suffocation seems to be a flawed assumption

Fungus has been infecting snakes like this adorable baby garter snake

New Research

A Deadly Fungus is Eating the Scales off Snakes in the Eastern U.S.

Researchers are still not sure why the fungus, usually content to live on dead animals, is now infecting living snakes

The ancestor of all living snakes, depicted on the prowl in the South American forests it likely inhabited 110 million years ago, likely possessed a pair of tiny hind limbs and hunted at night.

The Mother of All Snakes Looked Surprisingly Modern

New research indicates why the slithery beast’s body appears pretty much as it did 110 million years ago

This is a close mimic of the coral snake, but the real version has a singular venom.

Decoding the Deadly Secret of Snake Venom

The world’s animals have developed an incredible variety of venoms. But how?

A juvenile reticulated python in Malaysia

Cool Finds

A Zoo Python Had Six Babies in a “Virgin Birth”

The 20-foot-long reptile hadn’t had a chance to meet a mate, but she still laid 61 eggs

Cool Finds

In Microgravity, Some Snakes Tie Themselves in Knots, Others Attack Themselves

Some animals just don’t know how to deal when gravity goes away

University of Sao Paulo researcher Marcio Martins holds one snake while watching another, a deadly venomous snake living only on Queimada Grande Island, Atlantic Forest, Brazil.

This Terrifying Brazilian Island Has the Highest Concentration of Venomous Snakes Anywhere in the World

Brazil’s Ilha de Queimada Grande is the only home of one of the world’s deadliest, and most endangered, snakes

The Clarion nightsnake, brought into the scientific light at last.

New Research

Written Off as a Figment, the Mysterious Clarión Nightsnake Reemerges after Nearly 80 Years

The snake was discovered on a remote Mexican island in the 1930s, but the notes of the famous naturalist who documented it were later called into question

Python

Trending Today

Florida Gives Up on Beating Back Python Invaders

Pythons in Florida are invasive predators that aren’t going anywhere

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