Snake Study

Look around — you are surrounded by snakes. Where are they? On flags and signs; on bodies as tattoos; as a part of the medical symbol in pharmacies and doctors' offices; in books, movies, and games; and on exhibit in pet stores, museums, nature centers, and zoos. Unless you are in a polar region, on top of very high mountains, or on the islands of Ireland, New Zealand, or Greenland, live snakes are outside and likely not too far away. There are around 3,000 different kinds of snakes living around the world, including the sea snakes swimming in the warm waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the European adder living just above the Arctic Circle, and the common garter snakes and brown snakes that call many lawns, golf courses, and vacant lots home. Even more exciting, scientists believe there are snakes that have yet to be discovered!

Snakes are fascinating reptiles that have long been both feared and revered by humans. People have hunted snakes, drawn snakes, written about snakes, built snake statues, and even created snake jewelry for millennia, with the oldest snake artwork being made well over 10,000 years ago. People eat snake meat, wear snake leather, keep snakes as pets, milk snakes for their venom, use snakes for religious ceremonies, visit snake museums, and line up to touch live snakes. Even with all this interest, for many years most snake studies focused on the anatomy (parts of the body) and the physiology (how the body systems work) of snakes. Scientists knew a lot about snakes but not much about what they needed to live and reproduce in the wild. Only recently have a growing number of scientists started concentrating their studies on the natural ecology and conservation of snakes.

During their studies, ophiologists (off-ee-all-uh-jists; snake scientists) came to a shocking realization. Just as they were starting to do more field studies about snakes, it was becoming harder to find snakes. Many species of snakes are in danger of becoming extinct.

There are many reasons snake populations are declining — their habitats are being destroyed, too many of them are captured for food and the pet trade, sometimes new animals that are introduced into snake habitats either hunt the snakes or eat their food, and snake roundups (contests to find and kill as many snakes as possible) are just a few. If snakes were to disappear, there could be a huge increase in the populations of their prey — from insects to mice and even slugs! Scientists are concerned that most people don't understand how vital snakes are to the health of our environment. All these factors make it more important now than ever for people to learn all they can about snakes.

By reading the chapters and designed to save snakes. Armed doing the activities, you will learn with this information, you can not only about the anatomy and become a snake ambassador, physiology of snakes but also educating your family and friends about projects around the world about the wonders of snakes.

Make a Research Journal

Good scientists keep records of their observations, experiments, results, discoveries, questions, ideas, and even their conversations. Many of the activities in this book include making charts that will help you keep the information in order, which will make the data easier to understand. Sometimes an activity will make you think of other questions. Write down all these things in your research journal so you don't forget them.

Materials

3-ring binder with pockets
Pencils
10 dividers
Lined paper
Glue stick
Scissors

Label the dividers, and put 10 sheets of paper in each section:

Snake Sightings

Every time you see a snake or the image of a snake, record the date, what you saw, and where you saw it. Glue in photos you have taken, pictures, comics, and ads from magazines and newspapers. Be sure to add drawings of your own!

Experiments

This is where you record the results of your activities. Don't forget to write the name of each experiment at the top of the page.

Facts

In this section, write down any interesting information you see or hear about snakes.

Questions

It's easy to think of questions as you are doing something, and it's easy to forget your questions if you don't write them down. Leave a few lines after the question so you can write down the answer if you discover it later.

Resources

Write down the names and authors of books you read or the URLs of helpful websites. As you get to know snake scientists, record their names, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers so you can contact them if you have questions or ideas.

Keep a few extra dividers available to make new sections as you need them. For example, if you volunteer at a nature center to help take care of snakes, keep track of your hours and experiences in a special section.

Use the pockets to hold a couple of pencils, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, a field guide, and the snake string you make in a later activity.

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Seeing Snakes

Once you start looking for snakes, you start seeing more and more of them. Researchers have been studying people's ability to see snakes by using a touch-screen computer to measure reaction times. They asked people to look at a group of nine pictures that were shown on the screen at the same time and touch a certain one. All the participants, from age three through adult, found snake pictures faster than they found a picture of a flower, frog, or caterpillar.

Spot the Snakes

See how long it takes you to complete this test, and then time your family and friends doing the same test.

Materials

Stopwatch

Time how long it takes to follow the instructions at the top of the next two pages. Start the stopwatch as you turn this page, and stop it when you complete the task. Record your time, and then reset the stopwatch before you turn to the next page.

Even though people react quickly to pictures of snakes and to wild snakes if they see them, most people walk right by a live snake in the outdoors and never see it. Even seasoned snake scientists admit to walking within inches of a snake without noticing it is there. If you do see a live snake and tell someone about it, one of the first things they'll ask is "How big was it?" If you were lucky, the snake was still and you got a good look at it. Most likely, you only saw a small portion of the snake for a very short time. But people will still want a guesstimate — a guessed estimate of both its length and weight.

Snakes come in many sizes; they can be long and thin, short and heavy, or any other combination. Size differences depend on the type and age of the snake, and how well it has eaten. A mature Prairie ringneck snake might be 14 inches (36 cm) long, the same length as a hatchling ball python, but you would never mistake one for the other. The adult ringneck snake would have about the same...