Snakes or snakes (suborder Serpentes) are one of the animals that arouse the most interest in humans. It is due, above all, to the myths that circulate about its poison and its voracity. Also, we can't deny that his body shape is a bit strange. These reptiles lack limbs and have a certain worm-like appearance or worm-like shape. Despite this, they have a great ability to move and some can even reach amazing speeds.
These interesting animals are related to lizards and blind snakes, along with those that make up the order Squamata. We know that lizards are vertebrates, that is, they have an internal bony skeleton. So snakes have bones? We tell you about it in this article on our site.
Characteristics of snakes
In order to understand if snakes have bones and why, it is very important that we get to know them a little better. These are the main characteristics of snakes:
- Cosmopolitan: Although they are more abundant in warm or temperate climates, snakes are distributed throughout the world and occupy ecosystems very diverse. There are different types of snakes, such as terrestrial, arboreal, aquatic and even marine.
- Scale-Covered Body: This is a thick, hard coating found on all reptiles. Its function is to protect them from extreme environmental conditions, such as lack of water. The number of scales and their position are specific to each species.
- No limbs: The ancestors of snakes had limbs, but these disappeared as a result of evolution.
- They don't have a waist: their body is elongated and without movable joints.
- Carnivores and Predators: They hunt other animals and feed on them. In some cases, they can be much larger than them.
- They shed their skin: They shed their skin and periodically form a new one.
- They don't have eyelids: they always keep their eyes open. They are only covered by a thin membrane of skin that is shed during molting.
- Highly developed smell: Their main sense is smell, although they are also very adept at detecting ground vibrations. Very few have special pits that detect the heat of their prey.
- Poisonous: Some snakes have venom glands. This is used to paralyze or kill their prey before swallowing it. However, most of these reptiles are snakes that are not poisonous to humans.
Do snakes have bones, yes or no?
All reptiles are vertebrate animals, that is, their body is covered by an internal skeleton known as the vertebral column This column is formed by a series of wide and flat bones that are strongly united by the intervertebral discs, some "pads" formed by cartilage. The function of the spinal column is to protect and house the spinal cord, a fundamental structure of the central nervous system.
Like the rest of vertebrates, Snakes have bones Their body is covered by a vertebral column to which a series of ribs. Thanks to this, their body is very flexible, so it may seem that they lack a skeleton. They also have lots of bones in their skull.
If you want to know more, we recommend this other article with Examples of vertebrate and invertebrate animals.
The skeleton of the snake
Now that we know that snakes have bones, we can learn a little more about their skeleton.
The vertebrae of snakes
The body of snakes is covered by a large number of vertebrae These are shorter, wider and more numerous than those of other reptiles. Although their number depends on the length of the species, they are usually more than 100These are flattened bones that are joined by the intervertebral discs that we have already named before. These discs are relatively flexible and allow your body to undulate.
The waists of the serpents
Throughout evolution, snakes lost their pectoral and pelvic girdles, although some types of snakes have certain outlines. This is the case of boas (Boidae) and pythons (Pythonidae), which retain a certain degree of narrowing at the height of the pelvis and chest area.
They have no limbs
The skeleton of snakes is also characterized by the lack of limbs. Due to their locomotion by crawling, these curious reptiles don't need legs In their ancestors they were a waste of useless energy, so they gradually disappeared. Boas and pythons also have vestigial hind limbs. These are tiny bones or spurs that protrude from the back of your body, on either side of your cloaca.
The ribs of the serpents
In addition to the vertebrae, snakes have a series of floating ribs These are anchored in the vertebrae and float along the front, since these reptiles lack a sternum The ribs increase the rigidity of their body, which allows them to offer greater resistance to the irregularities of the ground with which they collide during their displacement. Numerous muscles are also attached to the ribs, thanks to which they can exert more force and move faster.
A snake skull
Snakes are diapsid animals, that is, their skulls have 2 temporal pits on each side. This skull is made up of many pieces, in fact, snakes have more joints in the skull than most reptiles. In addition, the two parts of its jaw are only joined by elastic ligaments, a very important feature for feeding snakes.
Thanks to the elasticity of their skull and jaw, these animals can open their mouths much wider than any reptile and dislocate the entire skull while eating. For this reason, they can consume prey several times the diameter of their head.
However, not all snakes can eat such large prey. Only those that kill by strangulation or poison do. The latter have teeth or specialized fangs to inject poison into their prey. These teeth can have a groove (opistoglyphic and proteroglyphic snakes) or be hollow (solenoglyphic snakes). However, most snakes are aglyphous, that is, they do not have specialized teeth, nor do they have venom.
