Transcript Snakes - Online Veterinary Anatomy Museum

Snakes
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder
Serpentes. Snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in
overlapping scarles. Many species of snakes have skulls with many
more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow
prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To
accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as
kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side,
and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a
pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the
cloaca.
Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica and on
most islands. Fifteen families are currently recognized, comprising 456
genera and over 2,900 species.
Most species are non-venomous and those that have venom use it
primarily to kill and subdue prey rather than for self- defence. Some
possess venom potent enough to cause painful injury or death to
humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow prey alive or kill by
construction. They are carnivorous, eating small animals including
lizards, other snakes, small mammals, birds, eggs, fish, snails or
insects. Because snakes cannot bite or tear their food to pieces, they
must swallow prey whole.
The skeleton of most snakes consists solely of the skull, hyoid,
vertebral column, and ribs, though henophidian snakes retain vestiges
of the pelvis and rear limbs
Classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Reptilia
Order:
Squamata
Superfamily:
Varanoidea
(unranked):
Pythonomorpha
Suborder:
Serpentes
Anatomy of a snake: 1 esophagus, 2 trachea,
3 tracheal lungs, 4 rudimentary left lung, 5
right lung, 6 heart, 7 liver, 8 stomach, 9 air
sac, 10 gallbladder, 11 pancreas, 12 spleen,
13 intestine, 14 testicles, 15 kidneys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake
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Eye
Fang
Mouth
Venom sac
Oesophagus
Trachea
Common carotid artery
Aortic arch
Auricle
Ventricle
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Hepatic portal vein
Liver
Dorsal aorta
Stomach
Duodenum
Pancreas
Small intestine
Skin
Ovary/egg
Oviduct
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Colon
Anus
Jugular vein
Abdominal vein
Lung
Kidney