The classification of Ophidia Serpentes. A classification essay on snakes. The essay mostly places them into 2 categories, venomous and nonvenomous

Essay by crash8008College, UndergraduateA+, July 2002

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The Classification of Ophidia Serpentes

Ah yes, the classification Ophidia Serpentes, known to most people simply as... snakes. There are many different kinds of snakes in the world, and they can be separated into several different categories by; location, coloring, size, method of birth, and the way they kill their prey to name a few. Snakes have long been thought to be the living ancestors of the dinosaurs. The separation of continents, along with thousands of years of isolation and evolution, have created many different snakes. Two large and obvious classifications of snakes are venomous and non-venomous.

Although you may not be able to tell just by looking at them, venomous snakes have a pair of large hollow fangs that are used to inject potent poison into prey. Non-Venomous snakes differ in that they have no fangs and use other means to kill their prey.

Snakes are one of those animals that, for some reason, a majority of people are afraid of.

Contrary to popular belief, snakes are not slimy, not overly aggressive, and are not man-eaters, but for some reason people fear them. Some commonly shared nightmares depicted on television include a pit of slithering snakes, which, unless they were venomous, are nearly harmless. Infact, there are very few known cases of a snake actually eating a human.

Any snake that possibly could eat a human would be non-venomous. Non-venomous snakes are the largest in the world. Living in tropical areas, these snakes kill their prey with constriction and they are sometimes referred to as constrictors. Constricting means tightening around something. These snakes wrap around their prey and squeeze their prey until it dies from suffocation. The constrictor will not release until its prey has suffocated to death. Some people actually have these snakes as pets as they...