snakes

During his flight on Monday, "As I turned to my left and looked down, I could see the head of the snake receding back underneath my seat," pilot Rudolf Erasmus says. "At which point there was a moment of stunned silence, to be brutally honest." He turned the plane around and landed safely at a nearby airport.

World News

He felt the slither of a venomous snake in the cockpit — then turned the plane around

4:18pm April 05, 2023

by Kate Bartlett

South African pilot Rudolf Erasmus made an emergency landing after discovering a Cape cobra accompanying him in the cockpit on Monday. The snake has not been found again since the plane landed.

A boa constrictor feeds on a lizard in Tijuca Forest National Park, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Science

This trick keeps snakes from suffocating as they squeeze and swallow their prey

6:08pm March 24, 2022

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

How do boa constrictors breathe while constricting their victims? A new study finds that snakes can switch which set of ribs they use to draw in air as they crush their meal before devouring it.

This undated photo provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows horned lizards found during a smuggling attempt last month at the San Diego border.

A man was arrested after hiding 52 reptiles under his clothes at the Mexican border

5:20pm March 09, 2022

by Rina Torchinsky

The 30-year-old U.S. citizen was trying to smuggle 43 horned lizards and nine snakes in small bags into the United States, officials say.

A Chrysopelea paradisi snake flying in the air during experiments in The Cube at Virginia Tech. Left: the snake is fully extended just after take-off from the branch on the left. Right: the snake undulating during flight.

Science

How Snakes Fly (Hint: It's Not On A Plane)

5:46pm June 29, 2020

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

A snake researcher always wondered how flying snakes propelled themselves. Then, someone told him he should work with the snakes in The Cube — a vast theater space with cameras everywhere.

Firefighter Pinyo Pukpinyo holds a Burmese python. In 16 years of snake wrangling, he says he has been bitten more than 20 times but helping people desperate to get rid of snakes in their homes "makes me happy."

World News

When Snakes Slither Into Bangkok Homes, This Is The Wrangler Who Gets Rid Of Them

4:35pm November 20, 2019

by Michael Sullivan

When pythons, cobras and pit vipers show up, Pinyo Pukpinyo, a sergeant in Bangkok's fire department, is the expert who catches them. He's been bitten 20 times but says his work "makes me happy."

Echis carinatus — aka the carpet viper — is a venomous species that strikes humans in parts of the Middle East and Africa.

Snakebites Make The List Of 'Neglected Tropical Diseases'

7:00am June 24, 2017

by Courtney Columbus

They claim about 100,000 lives a year. WHO has now put snakebites on its list of "neglected tropical diseases."

Burmese python and the DNA sequence responsible for limb loss.

Science

How Snakes Lost Their Legs

2:58pm October 20, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

Scientists in Florida say they've pinpointed a genetic process that caused snakes to lose their legs and have found that embryonic pythons still form "cryptic leg skeletons," millions of years later.

Black mambas are one of the fastest snakes in the world and grow up to 14 feet long. But their venom is no match for the antidote Fav-Afrique.

Health & Safety

The World Is Running Out Of A Critical Snakebite Antidote

7:55pm September 09, 2015

by Michaeleen Doucleff

If a venomous snake bites you in Africa, you're likely to survive when you're near a hospital. That might not be the case next year.

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An illustration of Pappochelys, based on its 240-million-year-old fossilized remains. This ancestor to today's turtle was about 8 inches long.

How The Turtle Got Its Shell

3:12pm August 28, 2015

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

The ribs of a 240 million-year-old fossil hold clues to how the first turtle shell evolved. And its skull shape seems closer to that of lizards and snakes than to an ancestor of dinosaurs and birds.

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The most recent common ancestor of all today's snakes likely lived 120 million years ago. Scientists believe it used needle-like hooked teeth to grab rodent-like creatures that it then swallowed whole.

Earth's First Snake Likely Evolved On Land, Not In Water

12:09pm May 20, 2015

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Genetic sleuthing and comparisons of recently discovered fossils with living snakes point to a "protosnake" ancestor that likely had tiny hind legs and lived about 120 million years ago.

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