So You Don't Like Snakes?

When we went to London Zoo as well as seeing the animals we also went and listened to an amazing talk about Snakes that was very interesting by an author whose name is Nicola Davies.  

She had written an hilarious book about a little girl who didn't like snakes.  She based it on something that happened to her when she was a child and her Mum hated snakes and how she tried to change her mind.  I really liked how her book was half fiction and half non-fiction.

There were two talks but for some reason everyone else went to the first talk except for two other kids.  So we got a whole beanbag all to ourselves.  Nicola was so nice. Even before she started the talk she had a really awesome conversation with us about snakes and about writing.

She showed us the skeleton of a tiny snake so we could see what the bones were like.  All the snake had was a spine and a skull.  This helped us to understand how snakes move.

She told us about why snakes lick the air.  It's because they're smelling.  They take some molecules from the air on their tongues and then put the tip of their tongue inside their mouths into a gap called the Jacobson's Organ where it analyses the molecules and sends messages to the brain to tell the snake what is there.

Then the head snake keeper brought out a cloth bag with something living inside!

It was a pet corn snake!

 First Nicola talked to us about the snake.

The snake was orange and white on the top and much lighter on the bottom.  This camouflage means that it can hide in corn.  But if it's up high creatures below who are looking up at it against the sky won't see it either.  We learnt this is called countershading.  (Other really good examples are penguins and sharks.)

Then we even got to touch the snake! Just like Nicola had said it wasn't slimy at all but it was actually completely dry.  Snakes looks slimy because they have a translucent outer skin which makes them look a bit wet even though they're not.

Next she showed us how it moved.

Next Nicola showed us the skull of a snake (I think it was a viper.)

She then explained to us how venomous snakes work.  They have hollow fangs at the front of their mouth as if they were injection needles.  Then when a snake bites it's prey a muscle pushes venom out of the venom glands and into the fang.  Then the venom will be injected via the fang into the prey's body when the snake bites.  Vipers fangs are tucked up against the roof of their mouth when they have their mouth shut, but when they open their mouths their fangs swing forward and are pushed slightly out of the mouth.

This is the skin of an African Rock Python.  Big snakes like the African Rock Python do not use venom but constrict their prey by wrapping their body round large animals and squeezing with their muscular coils until their victim eventually suffocates. 

We learnt so much day thanks to Nicola.  We liked the talk so much that we even bought her book.  She wrote a lovely message for us and signed it.  I thought I knew lots about snakes, but I found out there was so much more to learn.