Let's Talk about Snakes

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Epictetus, Jun 27, 2012.

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  1. Epictetus here & now Registered Senior Member

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    Friend Fraggle: You have to learn to relax a bit, enough to allow common parlance in any case. Of course Homo sapiens sapiens is an animal, and it would be absurd to say I didn't want a species that includes myself in my house. So I think the term 'animals' as I used it was understood.

    I deliberately used the word 'type' because it is a general term, like 'thingy'. I know very well it is not a scientific classification. I just wanted to write and not interrupt my flow so I used a generic term. I'm allowed to do that.

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    Again, you and everyone else surely knew what I meant.

    As for penguins, other types of seabirds, bears, seals and such and insects, sure they spend much of their time in the water, but they lack the range (if the maps above are anything to go by) of land snakes and sea snakes. I looked up the Arctic tern, for an instance, and found this range map:

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    So you see? They migrate and fly over most of the world but they only live in the arctic regions. Snakes live out in the middle of oceans and in forests, mountains and deserts. So again my question: what other creatures have such a range? Even that ubiquitous vermin homo sapiens sapiens passes over much of the ocean just as the tern does. So who? What?

    I don't wish to consider bacteria or viruses because they're microscopic, which somehow makes them boring IMHO. Perhaps worms micro and macroscopic (Frag, is that even a word?) can be considered, but I don't know their ranges.
     
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  3. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    In answer to your query of a species that has an admirable range of living conditions, I offer the following: Snow fleas, or Springtails.

    http://www.northcolumbiamonthly.com/boundaries/boundaries0108.shtml

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtail
     
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  5. Epictetus here & now Registered Senior Member

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    Good one. Just skimming your links trying to find if they inhabit the sea, I found
    But does this mean saltwater too? If it does, they may outdo the snakes. In any case, let's keep searching. Thanks.
     
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  7. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    The caption said this was a dinosaur flea (10 times the size of a normal flea)

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    But back on topic I like snakes of all types. I grew up in Southern California and the main poisonous snake was the rattlesnake. But once on a camping trip in the mountains I think I saw a coral snake, but later I couldn't remember the order of the colored bands, so maybe it was a banded king snake. As for a story, when I was about 12 or 13 a friend had a 4 foot gofer snake in his yard. By the time I got there his dad had killed it, so I took it home and skinned it, with some thought to making a snakeskin belt. Who would have guessed skinning a snake is not as easy as it sounds when you don't know what you are doing.

    PS - I've caught 100's of frogs and toads of various kinds during my childhood, and I never thought of any of them as slimy. Sometimes a wet frog would be a little slippery, but not slimy. This wasn't mentioned but when you catch a frog they will pee all over the place every time. Kind of yucky but again, I wouldn't call them slimy.

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  8. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Sorry, I got my snakes mixed up. It's difficult to understand the cognitive process of a person who says, "Oh hell, this deadly snake has grown so large in captivity in my house that I can't keep him safely locked up here any more. Oh well, it would be a shame to kill him. So I'll just turn him loose in the bayou where he will have no predators and an abundant food supply, and let him grow even bigger and faster. Yeah, that's a great idea."
    Sounds like a terrible place to live! Oh well, lots of people say the same thing about the Washington region, and our most annoying pests are deer, or "rats with hooves" as we affectionately call them. One did $7K damage to my truck.
    But your common parlance is simply another way of saying "imprecise terminology." It's getting in the way of the discussion. It's meaningless to compare the range of the arctic tern, one single species, with the range of snakes, which are a suborder of more than three thousand species.
    Yes. It means "visible to the naked eye."
     
  10. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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  11. Epictetus here & now Registered Senior Member

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  12. R1D2 many leagues under the sea. Valued Senior Member

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  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Ouch!
     
  14. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    I've kept reptiles as pets and you'll be happy to note that the community(the people who keep herps as pets) as a whole despises those people as well as the dishonest breeders that sell these trouble to keep animals to people without giving them the right information.
     
  15. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    you'd think so but not really. people have been bit by large constrictors and have said the scariest thing off all was little pain there was. the teeth on most reptiles are needle sharp. remember an incident with our nile monitor( my dad choice not my brother and mine we wanted a bearded dragon) where my bro was handling here got snapped at and thought he got away unscathed. when he squeezed his finger blood shot out his finger. he was bit and didn't feel a thing.
     
  16. Epictetus here & now Registered Senior Member

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    Whoa! That titano boa is muy grande!
     
  17. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    well it is the largest species ever discovered beat the previous record holder by like 10 15 feet
     
  18. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    This is the last snake I saw, when out walking my dogs:

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    Sadly, it was dead. It's a 'Grass Snake', non-venomous, they swim, and live near water, and eat small amphibians. I've seen a couple of live ones in the area, swimming across the river, and on the ponds at the nature reserve, but never up close.

    Previously to that, I saw an Adder, which is venomous, but it was a baby, and the picture I got on my phone a bit rubbish as I didn't want to get too close. An adult Adder bite is very unlikely to kill an adult human, but I was a way out of town, and didn't fancy testing the received wisdom while waiting for anti-venom. After that I made sure I took my good camera with me to that park,.. but never saw one again.
     
  19. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    snakes have never bothered me. Grew up around rattlesnakes and was always told to leave them alone, not kill them. We needed them to keep the mouse/prairie dog population down. Spiders on the other hand....<shudder>
     
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Yes I know that. We're dog breeders and we have the same problem with some of the people who buy and breed pitbulls and other dogs originally developed for fighting.
    If you like rattlesnakes then you ought to love spiders. Mrs. Fraggle keeps a "spider jar" handy in case she has to relocate one outside where his food supply is more plentiful. Like snakes, very few spiders have both the ability and desire to harm humans. And like snakes, you can probably find all of their photos on one website.
     
  21. carlolabares Registered Member

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    How to seduce a women

    I really have a phobia in snake.. My god, way back in my childhood, I got a bite of snake that make me afraid always.
     
  22. rcscwc Registered Senior Member

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    Vast number of snake species are harmless. Catch: You must know which ones. No one wants to test this hypothesis. If it is venomous, then surely you will not know if you are dead.
     
  23. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Knowing what snake are common in geographic areas is important. For instance in the western U.S. you have a few species of rattlesnakes and some corral snakes. Both are fairly easy to identify and everything else is harmless.
     
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