A group of snakes called a den or a bed. Snake suborder of a reptile squamous squad (Squamata). Legless animals with a thin, highly elongated body, devoid of mobile eyelids. Snakes have descended from lizards, so they have a lot in common with them, but two obvious signs allow almost always to distinguish exactly the two groups.
The vast majority of lizards have limbs. Snakes do not have front legs, although rudiments of the hind legs are sometimes noticeable in the form of claws. With legless lizards, which look very similar to snakes, mobile eyelids. Snakes also differ in the features of the structure of the head and body, associated with their peculiar way of feeding. Known app. 2400 modern kinds of snakes. Although most of them live in the tropics and subtropics, the suborder is distributed almost all over the world.
There are no snakes only in areas with permafrost, since during winter hibernation they need an underground shelter to survive the cold season. Only a few species live in the seas. About 500 species of snakes are poisonous; of which about half represent a serious danger to humans.
Determine the sex of the animal in color, as in other external features, it is difficult even for a specialist. However, females of most species are larger than males, and their tail is shorter. The length of the smallest snakes is only 12.5-15 cm with a mass of no more than 10-15 g. But the giants exceed 9 m in length and weigh hundreds of kilograms, being actually the longest among modern terrestrial vertebrates, and the fossil species were twice as long as today.
