Stuff You Should Know - Oh No, Snakes!

Episode Date: April 23, 2015

If you think snakes are legless reptile carnivores, then you are exactly right. If you think snakes are here to kill you then you are exactly wrong. Learn more about these fascinating and undeservedly condemned animals in today's podcast episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

attention bachelor nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable

happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry with the Stuff You Should Know, the Snake Edition. Snake Pliskin Edition. Oh man, good character. Yeah. Especially if you know like, it had to have been something of a joke to select the Kurt Russell because he was, I guess, I don't know

whether that came before or after the thing, do you? I think the thing was first. Okay, so I guess it wasn't quite a big of a joke, but I think earlier in his career, like Kurt Russell didn't even have friends. He was like such a squeaky clean Walt Disney movie kid. Yeah, yeah, he was like all the all the normal kids hated him. Oh really? Yeah. Like he was just known as like this, just can't do anything wrong. Like, yeah, like squeaky clean kid. Well, that was my first R rated movie. It was Escape from New York. Oh yeah. Yeah. Can you dig it? No, that was the Warriors. Oh yeah, that's right. No, I remember I called that. It was on like HBO or something. It wasn't even in the theater and I called my mom to ask her if it was okay if I watched it. That's how good of a boy

that I was. You're like Kurt Russell. Yeah, she said, sure, I know you're by yourself because you don't have any friends. Go ahead and watch it. It's funny. Yeah, man alive. That's a good snake story. You know, it has nothing to do with snakes per se. Oh, I've got a good snake story for later. Oh, well, I was going to say, lay it on us, but we'll wait. Yeah, I'm teasing that one. We'll wait patiently. All of you who suffer from a little something called Ophidiophobia, you can go ahead and skip this one because it's going to creep you out. I'm not afraid of snakes and I'm still creeped out by some parts of this because we're going to get like down and dirty with snakes. Well, here's my deal and I think we should say this as a public service. I get creeped out by snakes initially

and then I'm like, okay, it's just a snake, but snakes are vilified and killed when they shouldn't be killed. Yeah. Because people are scared of them and that ain't cool. Years and years ago in the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader where I learned 90% of the stuff that I know, I read about a study of snakes like people took a fake snake and put it in the road and then like hid behind some bushes and watched what people did and allegedly people would run over the snake and then back up and run over it again. Really? Yeah, according to the yeah, well, according to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, but yeah, I think people go out of their way to kill snakes. Yeah, I know some campers who like if they're hiking will kill a snake if they see it. Bad campers. Yeah, that's

not good, especially considering only like 5% of snake species are venomous. Yeah. And so it's pretty rare to come across a venomous snake. Yeah. There are some out there that will hurt you, pretty bad. Oh, well, sure. And we'll talk about those. But for the most part, most snakes either kill or pray by constricting or swallowing you whole while you're alive. You're too big for most snakes to really take on. Yeah. So they're not going to mess with you. Sure. But it is, there is a, you can't really fault people necessarily, although you and I both do, for just killing snakes wantonly and indiscriminately, because a study after study has found that we are really there's no other explanation, evolutionarily primed to

fear and notice snakes in our environment. Yeah, you found that cool article. And I'd seen this before that is unpopular science. Yeah, they've done studies that showed that people are more apt because of we evolved to not want to get killed by snakes to see snakes. And like our peripheral vision, then almost anything else, yeah, even spiders, which people are creeped out by. Yeah, well, and also spiders are deadly too. So it would make sense that over time, the people who were best at recognizing spiders and getting away from them would live longer to pass on their genes and so through natural selection, that would be the case. Supposedly, um, the same thing happened with snakes, but we are even better at recognizing snakes than

spiders. Snake detection theory. Yeah. Pretty good band name. It is. It's been a while since we had a good band name. That's definitely one of them. I just saw that on teacher Annamar key simultaneously. Oh, really? Wow. That means it's a good band name. So if you want to know more about that whole study, you can read about, I think it was in the Lancet in 2010, or basically it's like, yes, we can find a snake just about anywhere, even in our peripheral vision. Right. And we are scared of snakes and rightfully so. Yeah. I know. I feel like I'm primed when I'm camping and hiking just, I'm just always sort of on the lookout. Yeah. I'm never just like day dreaming and walking. I'm always looking at the ground and that's smart, man, because they will

lay right across the trail and that they, they're not looking out for you. Right. So you stumble upon them and that's when an accident might happen. Yeah. The problem is with snakes, you're looking at the ground, you better be looking up too. Like if you're in the Amazon, a lot of boa constrictors dangle from trees and then like drop themselves down onto their prey, which includes monkeys of which you, my friend, are one. That's right. You know? Yeah. So if you had a boa constrictor that was feeling kind of froggy, they might come at you. Or those flying snakes. Yeah. That obviously cannot fly, but they glide down. Yeah. Quite a ways. In Sri Lanka, right? Yeah. If you've seen these videos, they leap from a tree and start squiggling and then they flatten their body

out and they can go a long way from where they started. Right. And it's not straight down. You know what I'm saying? No. So let's just rephrase all this. Let's restate it. You and I disagree with killing snakes indiscriminately. It's just wrong. But there is a healthy and understandable preternatural human fear of snakes. Sure. Actually just natural human fear. Yeah. Even Darwin wrote about it. Oh yeah. He tried to do that. A test, remember? Yeah. Like I'm not going to jump when the snake jumps at me. Uh-huh. And he's like, keep jumping. Yeah. And he's basically like, it's human instinct. Right. All right. So shall we start with snakes in general? Let's do it. In earnest. They've been around a lot longer than we have. Yeah. There are 2,700

known species of this reptile. And one thing you'll find in common with all of them is they all have no limbs. It's something they can't wear a vest. Can't wear a vest. Well, because there's no way to put their thumbs, right? Or there's no thumbs to put in the vest. No arms. Oh, I thought you meant just like, you got to have the thumbs in the vest too. Well, sure you got it. But I mean, you have to have the arms to have the thumbs. That's from Peewee's Big Adventure. Oh, see, I just trampled all over that thing. It's all right. All right. They are carnivores. It means they eat meat. Yeah. Which includes you? It includes me, because I'm just a big monkey. And they're cold-blooded. They are ectothermic, which means their inner temperature varies

along with where they are. It fluctuates depending on how hot or cold it is. Yeah. And that's all snakes. And apparently they tend to thrive. Well, all ectothermic animals tend to thrive and get bigger in warmer climates too. Oh, yeah? Yeah. That makes sense. Which is why the biggest snakes you're going to find are in the tropics near the equator. If you think they look like legless lizards, it's because they sort of are. They're from the same order, which is Squamada. And then there are a couple of suborders, Sariah for lizards and Serpentis for snakes. Or Ophidia, which is where the Ophidiaphobia comes from. Ophidophobia, which is the fear of snakes. I like Serpentis better. Yes. Serpentophobia. Waste. It just makes sense. Sure.

If you look at a picture of a snake, which we have on this article, there are some pretty good graphics. If you look at their body, it's pretty neat because even though they look funny, they are not so different from us. They have bones and they have organs and they have a skull and a brain. Yeah, they're vertebrates. Yeah. It's all just sort of squished in that long body, such that it all sort of fits next to each other. Right. The thing is, although they have like some, the same senses that we have. Yeah. I notice I'm making sounds more than usual unconsciously in this episode. That is subconscious. Exactly. They have the same senses that we have in much the same way, but they're adjusted slightly differently. They don't have ears. Anybody who's ever

looked at a snake would flip out if you saw one with ears. That'd be awesome. But they do have the ability to hear. They just have the sides of their skull have little specialized bones that the skin covers. Yes. Sound vibrations hit the skin. It's transferred to the bone and that transfers to an auditory nerve or the brain processes it and says, let's jackrabbit and I'm hungry. Exactly. I'm going that way. Sight. They do not see in color and depending on the snake's environment and where they, how they live their life basically, their eyes are going to be quite different. There are rods that have a low light distinguishing. It's like, I sort of get the sense that it's like the fuzzy, fuzzy looking shapes and things, not super crystal clear.

Yeah. Like that, that camera trick they always use when somebody's coming out of anesthesia in the hospital. Blinks. That is probably one of the types of sight. The cones produce the clear images. And if a snake like lives in a cave in the dark for most of its life, it's not going to need that awesome vision. It's going to just have like that light and dark sense. If a snake lives above ground, does all of its hunting above ground, they have really good vision and great depth perception. Yeah. And can actually like adjust the focus from far away to near very easily. And they actually can see some color. Oh, really? Just not like anything in the range that we can see. Gotcha. But they do have the spectacular extra vision. Yes. Infrared stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

So basically, if you seem predator, snakes see you like that. Some snakes do. Snake species, especially ones that live above ground because they are frequently nocturnal and they hunt warm-blooded animals. So they have basically little thermal imaging cameras that are on top of their normal vision. Yeah. And I think that helps their periphery a little bit as well. Like they'll just see like something hot next to me. Snake is eating that monkey. You know? Yeah. They make that noise too. That was a great noise. And then we'll round out the senses with smell. They have little nasal openings and they have little olfactory chamber to process that stuff. And they also have tongues which are not there to taste because they don't have a sense

of taste. No. Which is sad for them. Yeah. They're just there to eat, not to enjoy it. Yeah. So they'll like swallow a big hole and just be like, how was that? I don't know. I don't have a sense of taste. I'm full. But they do flick their tongue as anybody knows. And that's one of the defining characteristics of snakes. But what they're doing is gathering odorants out of the air and delivering them to these little scent glands or scent organs called Jacobson's glands. Jacobson's organs. Yeah. And that thing is basically hooked up to a secondary olfactory nerve that further interprets the air scent. So I get the feeling that smell. They're pretty good at smelling. Yeah. Two times over. That's right. Then they have their digestive tract which is going to run all along the length

of the body. I'm telling you, look at this graphic. It really kind of spells it out. Everything's just elongated. It's a good dyed in the wool. How stuff works, illustration. Agreed. So you've got these, you know, you've got your mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, small and large intestines. You've got an anus. And it's all stretched along the whole length of the body. Right, exactly. You've got a trachea. You've got lungs, at least one lung. Some snakes have two. Some even have a third. Yeah. And that's weird because, I mean, it makes sense if they would have three. If they just have one, that's odd to me. Yeah. The reason it's odd is because when snakes are digesting their food, their metabolic rate increases because they're often eating things that can be 50 to

100% of their body weight. Oh, yeah. And when you're eating something that large and swallowing at whole, your metabolic rate goes into high gear. Sure. And you also need to produce a lot more digestive fluids than you normally would. Yeah. So their oxygen consumption can increase by up to like 100 times. Oh, wow. So you would think that they would have like 15 lungs. Yeah. But apparently some of them just have the one. Interesting. But what is even more interesting, Chuck, is when you have like a whole rabbit, just in your mouth is completely full of a rabbit. Yeah. You still need to breathe. So the snakes can actually extend their trachea, their breathing tube out of their mouth from underneath their prey. Yeah. Basically like one of those like Wiley Coyote cartoons where,

I don't know if he ever did, but Bugs Bunny definitely did. You just grab like a reed and use it as a straw from underwater. Yeah. Well, imagine that if Bugs Bunny were in a snake's mouth and that reed was coming out from underneath them. That's the analogy I was going for. I got you. They also don't have a diaphragm, which is pretty interesting. They breathe by widening and narrowing their rib cage, literally creating a vacuum, pushing air in and sucking air out and sucking air back in. And between each of these cycles, they actually stop. They have an apnea that occurs where they don't breathe at all. And sometimes it's a few seconds. Sometimes it's a few minutes, but that's how they breathe. It's crazy and cool. So I'm pretty much enthralled by

now with snakes. I'm not creeped out yet. Okay. We haven't really reached the creepy part. No. We'll get to those starting after we get back from this break. Hey guys, it's Cheekies from Cheekies and Chill Podcast. And I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind season three. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new Tell All podcast. The most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all and now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward and letting everybody hear for me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every

day. Truly every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck, you have the ability to shed dead skin cells pretty much constantly. That's right. They're always sloughing off. Yeah, we had a great episode on that. We did. What was it? I think skin, right? Yeah, but also did it come up and does your body regenerate itself every seven years or something? Sure. You're constantly doing that with skin cells. Snakes shed their skin as well, but they do it in a completely different technique and they molt. They actually shed their whole outer layer of skin every once in a while. Yeah, sometimes

you'll see that in the woods and you'll think, oh, well, there was a snake and now he's not here, but here's his hollow body or hollow skin. Here's his ghost. So what they have is they have an elastic skin that attaches to muscles and then the scales are made of keratin, the same thing that our fingernails are made from. And the number of scales they have doesn't change or the pattern as they grow. I guess the scales just get larger. Yeah, and they replace themselves over time. Yeah, pretty interesting. Yeah. So when the outer skin of the snake starts to get kind of worn down and banged up, the snake says, it's time for some new ones. Yeah. So they start reproducing skin cells, but almost these specialized skin cells between their outer skin and their inner skin. And those

things form this layer between the two and they liquefy, which helps kind of, well, first it makes the outer skin a little more sheddable. Yeah, softens it up. But it also separates it from the snake itself so it can eventually slide out of it. And it gets to a point where it starts rubbing its chin against a rock. Yeah, like a kitty cat. Yeah, and it ends up de-gloving its whole body, basically. Man, you love that word. It's a great descriptor. It is. And it turns out, and we'll see this as we progress here, but snakes use rocks and things a lot because they don't have limbs. And so they'll rub up against that thing, like you said, and just peel it off and just keep going until the skin's all gone. And they're like, I got a new suit. Check it out. Check out my bow tie.

And I just have to do this again, how often? Well, it depends. This article said it can happen anywhere from, it can start again a few days later, a few months later, a few days later. Yeah. What a useless species of snake that must be. Like all they do is molt the whole time. Yeah, because it takes about two weeks to complete the molting process. So that surprised me. They're consumed by the quest for looking young. Yeah, maybe that's what it is. Yeah. A few months later, it makes a little more sense to me. But I think it could depend too on how banged up they get. Sure. Like maybe they're forced to molt a few days later because of something. So like a Steve McQueen snake would probably molt a lot. Snakes, they grow their entire life,

which is another great fact to me. Maybe the best one of the show. What, that they indeterminate growth? Yeah, they never stop growing. No, they can just keep growing and growing. Again, it depends on like how ample their food supply is, what the ambient temperature is in their environment, but they can just keep on growing. Yeah, that slows down. They don't grow at the same rate. Right. But once they reach maturity, they keep on growing. They can live anywhere from four to 25 years, depending on the species. Yeah, and probably more than that or less, depending on the hazards in the area.

Yes, like people with machetes. Exactly. All right. Are we to the part, and this I think is what creeps people out a little bit, is how snakes move. That's definitely probably the creepiest part about it. Well, it's wonderful. See, I think it's amazing. It is slightly disconcerting to see, because you're used to things with legs and arms, but when you see that slithering motion, it definitely like, I think for most people, it's just a little bit of a whoo. Yeah. But if you stop and look at it, you're like, wow, they really have that down pat. Yeah, it's a wonder of nature. Snakes are able to locomote because

we said they're vertebrates. Their bodies are made up of scores and scores and hundreds, depending on the size and type of the snake, of tiny vertebra that are attached to pairs of ribs, and it goes all throughout the snake's body. Basically, each of these is a point at which the snake can contort itself. You've got a bunch of these working together in tandem. The snake can propel itself forward using a number of different techniques. They also have what amounts to, on their bellies, on their underside, basically tire tread. Yeah, ventral scales. It's pretty neat. And those are used to just get the feeling they just grip on whatever it can grip on and help it along. So there's four main ways that a snake propels itself

along. The one that I think is most popular among snakes these days is the serpentine motion. The jitterbug. The serpentine motion. Yeah, the classic S shape. Also known as undulatory locomotion. And basically, the neck contracts its muscles in it. The body is thrust from side to side. Yep. And it says, I'm going, I'm going, and the snake just takes off like a rocket. Yeah, and this can be in water or on land. If you've ever been in a lake and seen a snake swimming across the water, that'll get you going quick, because those things move really quick in the water. And a lot of water snakes are poisonous, for sure. Yeah, water moccasins.

Yeah, we have those here in Georgia, of course. What's the other copperheads? We'll get them in the Greeks and rivers. Yeah. So these are, because they have no resistance points, obviously, in the water, they can just slink along quicker. But on the land, they use these rocks and branches and little divots and dents in the landscape to just, you know, propel itself. Like I'm going to put my belly on that rock and shoot myself forward a little bit. Yeah. And then whatever's below my belly, it's going to be on the rock. Right. And just inches itself along. Well, not inches. These things can move in some cases. Right. By inches. Well, by feet. Like the Black Mamba, 13 miles an hour.

Wow. That is so scary. Can you imagine that? Because that's a pretty poisonous snake. Yeah. I think it's number five on the list, which we'll get to. There's side winding too, which is crazy. Yeah, those are creepy looking. It'll get your dog disqualified in a dog show, but is that one of the big strikes against? Side gating? Yeah, for sure. We did one on dog shows, right? Yeah, we did. Yeah. It's good for snakes, though, especially ones where there aren't those resistant points like rocks and branches and leaves that a snake can use to propel itself, say like a long sand in the sandy desert. Yeah, that's where I've usually seen side winders. That's where the side winding goes on. Yeah, it's the same S-shape, but the cool

thing about side winding to me is if you slow it down and look closely, the major portions of this snake's body is off the sand when it's moving. It's like just sort of... Check it out. Yeah, like my front's on, and my back's down, now my back's down, and my front's on, and the whole time the middle is off the ground. Yeah, there's just basically like the parts that curve down, everything else is held up. Those are the only points in context with the ground. Yeah, it's trying to hop. I get the feeling. Yeah. Like I wish I had legs. I'm doing my best here. I'm doing my best. There's the caterpillar, which I haven't seen much. That is the same rectilinear locomotion, but it's up and down like it creates that

rippling effect like you would see a caterpillar. Right. I don't see that a whole lot. Well, yeah, rather than side to side, the curves are up and down. It's like the break dancing move the water. Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. They should have called it the snake. They should have. And then my favorite, the concertina, which is sort of like the S, but I get the feeling it's like when you see the old hand accordion and a cartoon, like the front moves forward and then stops and then the back catches up, then the front moves forward again. Exactly. That's sort of what it looks like. Exactly. Yeah. And they use concertina motion for climbing stuff like trees usually. Yeah. There's another disconcerting thing about snakes that they can climb trees and then jump out of them. I know. Here we are saying you

shouldn't fear snakes. And all we're doing is make people fear snakes. Again, another cool graphic though on snake movement on the article here at How Stuff Works. All right, so let's talk big snakes. Okay. Because the anaconda, I think everyone knows is the largest snake. And those things are great swimmers that can weigh as much as 550 pounds. Yeah, man. I actually enjoyed that dumb movie. I never saw it. Really? It was terrible, but terribly good. I had a really good cast for such a bad movie. Yeah. Like Owen Wilson and John Voight and Ice Cube and J.Lo. I don't know. Marlon Brando. Yeah. He was the snake. I wish I could do a Brando impression so bad right now. Oh, yeah. Which movie would you do? I would just do him as a snake. Oh, but see mine would have to be as

like the Vito Corleone as a snake because I can only do Brando through his movies. That's fine. Go ahead. No, no, no. I'm not going to do it. Okay. Make him an awful or it couldn't refuse. It's good. That was definitely worth the wait. They can be up to 12 inches in diameter and you're going to find these dudes in rivers in South America and they spend their time in the water because they're so large. That's the best way they can get around. Right. They're huge. Yeah. So there's again less resistance in the water. So they've learned to be pretty good swimmers. Yeah. And they are quite the hunter. Oh, yes. Their eyes and their nose are on the tops of their heads. So very much like an alligator or a crocodile, they can be almost completely submerged but

still keep an eye on their prey. Yeah. They're tough dudes. They're not poisonous. They're constrictors, right? Yeah. They're related to boas. Yeah. They're related to boas and they can hold their breath for up to 10 minutes if they do go underwater, which is pretty crazy too. But what was the, I even found that article. It was an article on Smithsonian about the Titanoboa. Yeah. This ancient, I think it was after the dinosaurs, correct? Yeah. It was in that very heady, salad day time after the dinosaurs when all of the former prey of the dinosaurs were allowed to get huge. One of the things that got huge was the Titanoboa. Yeah. It was about 56 million years ago and there's a coal pit in Columbia that is yielded just a trove of fossils

from this era, including the Titanoboa where it was discovered. Yeah. And I think the remarkable thing about this one, aside from its size, was that they were able to find a snake skull, which is a really rare thing apparently because when skulls, when snake dies, their skull bones just sort of go away to the wind because they're in so many little pieces. Exactly. Like a human skull is basically two pieces. Your lower jaw and the rest of your skull. Yeah. With a snake skull, and we'll get into why, but there's a, like you say, a bunch of different pieces to them. And yeah, when they die, it disintegrates. There's snake skull parts, but an intact snake skull. Yeah. It's rare. Very rare. So then to discover an entirely new 56 million year old species of

giant snake with an intact skull was a big deal. Yeah. And they found the Titanoboa and they figured out that it grew to about 40 feet long. 40 feet. Wait about a ton. Wow. So it was about as long as a school bus and weighed as much as a rhinoceros. That is crazy. And it could eat gators, turtles, like everything. It was the king of this Colombian jungle back in the day. Yeah. I imagine a whatever I wanted to. Yes. That is, I can't imagine. I mean, an anaconda these days is impressive. Right. But a 40 footer, that's something else. I mean, it basically is what they were predicting in the movie Anaconda. Unwittingly. Yeah. It was probably about 40 feet in a ton, right? In that movie.

Yeah. Really bad CGI. Yeah. To make it all happen. Yeah. Well, let's talk about eating a little bit. One of the remarkable things about the snake is that it does swallow its prey whole. And it can do this. And everyone's seen the snake when they go to unhinge that jaw. That is what they're doing. Right. They have a very specialized feature and it's called a quadrate bone. And the upper jaw connects to the lower jaw with this. And it can unhinge itself. And the rest of the skull is connected by like muscle and tendon. So it can get up to like 150 degrees wide open. Right. And it's not just the upper jaw and the lower jaw that can unhinge and get wider. I think, what did you say, 150 degrees? Yeah. It also can expand side to side.

So like the bones that make up the front of the snake's skull are like you said, connected by bone or by muscle and tendon. So they can stretch apart as well. So not only does it get bigger vertically, the whole mouth can get bigger horizontally as well. And it can, again, a snake can eat a whole rabbit. That's right. And how it does that is, and this is how the article describes it, it opens its mouth and begins to walk its lower jaw over the prey as its backward curving teeth grind up the animal. So it just sort of sucks it in. Right. It depends on the species of snake, whether it has backward curving teeth or not. But nonvenomous snakes do have the backward curving teeth so that the prey can't get out. They can get in, but they

can't get out. They check in, but they don't check out. Exactly. All along, they are crushing, as the deeper it goes in the digestive tract, crushing this thing down until eventually it's just broken down into nutrients, just like eating a regular meal. Exactly. And again, it takes a lot more digestive juices to make this happen. Sure. So this thing's just producing this stuff over time. Sometimes it takes venom. Yeah. You know, to subdue this animal, because of a rabbit, it's going to be like, I don't want to go in that mouth. No, I'm going to scratch your esophagus up. Exactly. Like you might get me, but I'm going to take part of you down with me. So that's why they have these wicked little things called fangs. And they're in the upper jaw,

and venomous snakes have the two hallmark hollowed out fangs that are just basically a delivery system, a sharp little delivery system. And they have glands under each eye called venom ducts, and that's where the good stuff comes from. Right. And they just squeeze it through those little fangs. Right. And supposedly the venom passes through other glands where more chemicals are added to it, and it becomes this amazing specialized brew. And apparently each snake species kind of has its own signature death cocktail. Sure. But there are some toxins that are found in just about all of them. There's neurotoxins. Yeah. Break down your nervous system function, including things like breathing. Yeah. So that'll, that'll stop your,

will stop your life eventually. Yeah, paralysis. Right. You're not going to be able to move, which is why it's a big one that helps them to feed, you know, because all of a sudden the rabbit's like alive, but you know, has that looking inside? Yes. Like I can't move. What's going on? The time is near. I hate Tuesdays. Cardiotoxins are going to deteriorate the heart and basically say you're done beating. And then they have hemotoxins, and that will rupture your blood vessels, and you're going to bleed internally. You know what else I've found that's pretty neat. So that's those are venomous snakes. Remember, we talked about like, what's the most poisonous animal or venomous animal in the world? We had an episode on that. Sure. There are some,

so venomous snake is something that produces its own poison. There are some snakes that are technically poisonous because they eat like poisonous tree frogs or something like that. And they collect the poison from the frogs and store it. I didn't know that. And then they use it to catch prey or as defense later on, but they're not physically producing their own poison. They're collecting it and deploying it. And they wouldn't have fangs either. No, or else they wouldn't have fangs with the hollowed out delivery system. Right. Interesting. When they do have fangs, by the way, they are, they fold backwards in the mouth. Did you already say that? No, there's like pockets though that like are in their gums, the roof of their mouth, their hard palate. Oh, it's like a little holster?

Uh-huh. Oh, okay. Yeah, because if not, it just go right through the bottom of their mouth and then they'd look pretty funny. Yeah, they would. Fang holster, another band name. I knew this was going to have a lot of band names. The venom can also have, if you heard our blood episode, aglutinins and anticoagulants, which are either going to make the blood clot or thin out. Well, remember in our blood type episode, there was a glutination was what happens when you mix unlike blood. Yeah, not good. No. And like again, like you mentioned, this is just another addition to the cocktail that's added to the other stuff. And then if you want to die another way, you could be constricted. Yeah. There are boas and anacondas and they wrap around you. Well, first they'll

get you in their mouth. Right. So you're not moving. Then they'll wrap around you and you finally exhale and then they say that was your last breath, my friend. So long, sucker. Because I'm going to squeeze you so tight, you're not going to be able to inhale ever again. Yeah, and it's not just the lungs that they crush. They also crush the heart. Yeah. They squeeze so tight that the heart is prevented from contracting and expanding. You ever had a boa constrictor, like on your arm, like a chinspan or whatever? Yeah. And remember the one that when we were shooting? Oh, yeah, yeah. Did you hold that one? Yeah. I think I did. I think I petted it. Yeah. Yeah, I did once in college. I was at a party and someone had a snake and I had a few drinks. It was like,

I'm going to get over my fear of snakes. And now is the time. Yeah. And he let the snake like, you know, crawl around me and wrap around my arm. And I was like, all right, this is awesome. Yeah. And slightly creeped out, but I was like, all right, I can, I can handle this. It wasn't like you put a tarantula on me. No, I could not handle that would be very freaky. Yeah. All right. Well, after this message break, we are going to talk a little bit about snake sex. Hey guys, it's cheekies from cheekies and chill podcast. And I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's love is blind season three. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed?

What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace the way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to cheekies and chill on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention bachelor nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell all podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing

the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward and letting everybody here for me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this. And I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly every day of my life. I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. You ready to talk snake sex? I'm ready, man. This is the creepiest part to me. Oh, no, it's not beautiful. Okay. A female snake is the one who sends out the order. Hey,

I'm ready to have some sex. Right. So I'm going to via pheromones. Yeah. Pheromones. And I'm going to leave a little trail of pheromones everywhere I go today because today's the day. And a male snake picks up that scent and is like, I'm going to follow this trail until I catch up to this lovely lady yet at the end of the trail. And then he finally catches up to her. Apparently the lady snake is just going about a normal business. But the male snake is like, well, I know what I'm doing today and following the trailer where it goes. And when he does catch up to her, he says, Hey, how's it going? And he does that by like bumping the back of her head with this chin basically like, Hey, I think that's cute. Hey, Hey, Hey, you. Yeah, pay attention to me. Okay. And then after

that, after he's got her attention, he also is like sliding over like back and forth just basically being a pest. Yeah. And finally, the the lady snake, if she likes the guy, she likes what she sees, right? Yeah, should be like, all right, fine. And boop, up goes the tail. I wonder if a snake, female snake ever sees a lizard and is like, Oh, man, if only it didn't have legs, those arms and hands. Oh, yeah, they could do, you know, yeah. I don't think that's what snakes don't think like that. Do they? I don't know. All right. So she lifts her tail. And she said, I like you. I'm willing and able. Let's do this. And so they wrap their tails around each other. And they, they sort of just intertwine until their cloakers meet up. And that's where it all happens, my friend. That's

where it all happens. The male snakes, hemi-peans, which is his reproductive organ, says, Here's some sperm. That thing got a hemi. It's funny. Yeah, he delivers sperm through his hemi-pean. Why is this so awkward? I don't know. So yes, the hemi-peans delivers the sperm and the female becomes fertilized. Hooray. And now they can make baby snakes or lay eggs. Yeah, this is pretty interesting. Sure. Like some of them do both. Yeah. And I thought that was unusual. It would seem like, I don't know, in nature, you usually don't have one or the other. Yeah. You know, or both. Yeah. I mean, like maybe like this kind of animal, like a bird lays an egg. Sure. But a panda bear lays, or has live young, right? Yeah. There aren't panda bears that can also lay eggs or have

live young that just seems a little too random. Boy, could you imagine a panda egg hatch would be about the cutest thing. Yeah. That would break the internet if a little panda bear hatched from an egg. Yeah. It was like two pounds. That would be pretty cute. So if they have a live young, they can give birth to anywhere from one to 150 snakes, which is, you know, might be some people's nightmare. Yeah, like remember that part in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Not Raiders? No, it was the, they were at the feast at the Maharaja's table, and they bring out that snake and slice it open on the live. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Man, they make good use of snakes. I forgot because in Raiders, the famous. Oh yeah. Asps. Hey, that was a good Sala. Was that his name? I think so, right? I don't

know. Oh man, I'm going to get killed for that one if it's not. If they lay eggs, they can hatch them internally, hold them internally until they hatch, or give birth to the egg and then the egg will hatch. And like you said, that's sort of the combination method if they hold the eggs internally. And they take care of their young, but not really like forever. Like sometimes they'll even leave the eggs before they hatch. Sometimes they'll stick around and protect them for a little while. So it sort of depends. Right. It depends on the species. I guess the reason why they would have so many different qualities in the same like family is that they've been around for like 160 million years. Yeah. And the variety of their distribution all over the world. Yeah. So speaking

of variety, like we said, just 5% of snakes are poisonous, but the ones that are poisonous can be really, really poisonous. Yeah. Not just mildly poisonous, but like really deadly poisonous. Well, you mean venomous still or poisonous? Thank you. Yeah. I mean venomous. You're absolutely right. Yeah, I found a list of most venomous snakes. And lucky for us here in the US of A in Canada and Mexico, we only have the rattlesnake to contend with. Well, wait a minute. I thought we had like water moccasins and copper. Oh no, as far as the most venomous. Oh, got you. Like a water moccasin bite, you'll be fine. Oh, really? I didn't know that. I thought it was like deadly. No. Well, I mean, if you just like went back and watched TV, maybe, but you go to the doctor,

it's not like I'm going to die in 30 minutes because it's all about what it comes down to is how deadly the venom is. Like I got bit by a water moccasin, but Judge Judy's on. What am I going to do? Decisions, decisions. I got to see this verdict. The Eastern Diamondback is the most venomous in North America. And that was the one that I encountered my snake story when I was a kid. Wow, that's scary. We were looking at property with my parents in the North Georgia Mountains, and my brother and I were running ahead. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was a rattlesnake, a big, big rattlesnake coiled and ready to go. And your brother just pulled out six shooters, shot it once in the head and like twirl is going to put it back, right? No, the old mountain man came

in with a stick, like just from nowhere, like running behind us. And one jab got the head. Geez. Yeah. It was scary, man. And looking back, I'm like, I wish he hadn't killed the snake, but we were, we were four feet from this thing. And it was completely coiled with his head up like he was ready to go. He could have gotten you. Yeah, he could have totally gotten us. Number nine is the death adder in Australia in New Guinea. And they kill other snakes. But if you happen upon them, you'll notice their triangular shaped head, which is always a dead giveaway. Right. Usually that's not a good snake. Right. Or not again, a good snake, but not one you want to like play with. And by the way, Chuck, if you had a, you encountered the four foot rattlesnake,

you could expect a striking distance of two thirds of his body length is usually the rule of thumb for a rattlesnake. We were probably close to striking distance then. Man. Yeah. That is scary. We were out in the woods too. That wouldn't have been a pretty scene, you know, no, the old mountain man would have just had to put you down immediately. Now he was just laid on your face. He probably would have done the old suck it out with his mouth and spit, which I think is not the way to do it from what I understand. Yeah. Vipers are next number eight. China, India, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, very fast, very ill tempered. The Philippine cobra. I didn't know this. Cobras generally aren't, I mean, they're venomous,

but their venom isn't among the most deadly. Like you could go watch TV for a little while. No, I'm probably not. But the Philippine cobra is the exception. They have the most deadly venom of all the cobras. Right. Very neurotoxic. There's the tiger snake. Yeah. This one can kill you within 30 minutes. Yeah. Supposedly. Pretty quick. And before there was such thing as antivenin, tiger snakes killed at a rate of about 60 to 70%. Also in Australia, by the way. Yeah. As you'll notice, that is a trend. And when we talked about the most venomous creatures, right, Australia was always around. We have our black mamba, which we talked about in Africa, very aggressive, very fast, and they can strike up to 12 times in a row and a single bite is

capable of killing anywhere between 10 to 25 adults. Very deadly. It's still not the deadliest, though, is it? Nope. There's several more. Number four, the taipan. Also in Australia, can kill 12,000 guinea pigs with a single bite. That's what they compare calories to as well. Like I said, a big mac. That's like eight guinea pigs where the calories. The blue, K-R-A-I-T, the blue crate, Malaysian, and it is the most deadly of that species. In Southeast Asian Indonesia, 50% of the bites, even with antivenin, you will die. That is so scary. That's super scary. That is a deadly, deadly snake. Number two, the eastern brown. One 14,000th of an ounce is enough to kill an adult human.

The scary thing about them is they live in Australia near major population centers. Those are the ones I think that you can go out and find like the second most deadly snake in the world in your yard. Right, or like a bar or something like that at work. Can you imagine that? Man. Number one, the inland taipan or the fierce snake. This is another subspecies, but they put it on the list because they just said it deserves to be there. It is the most toxic venom in the world. 110 milligrams of venom in one bite is enough to kill about 100 human beings. Or five million guinea pigs. The good thing about this one though is it's not super aggressive and you're not going to see one very much. It's rare to even

encounter one. Right. For that reason, they don't have any fatalities on record. Oh, really? Yeah. On record. Right. And what was that list from? Was that Io9 or was it a? Listverse. Listverse. Listverse put it together for us, man. Yeah, double check though. I think it's pretty accurate. I'd say just any of those 10 avoid in the wild. Don't kill them though unless you have to. Right. But always hike with a flamethrower. Chuck, have you ever heard there's no snakes in Ireland? No. Is that a saying? Oh, yeah. St. Patrick supposedly drove all the snakes out of Ireland. That's one of the reasons he got so famous. Oh, wow. He did not do that. Because there are snakes in Ireland, of course, right? No. Oh, there really aren't? There are in like zoos and people's homes,

but no, there's no snakes in the wild in Ireland seriously. What about England, Scotland and Wales? I think that there may be. But Ireland, when snakes were developing, was under water, and snakes never made it over there. So there really aren't snakes in Ireland as far as I can tell. But are there in Scotland and England? I'm guessing yes. Surely one is across the border. And I mean like the fact that there are some like in zoos and people's homes mean that there eventually will be. Right. Because you know like down in Florida, people would like take pythons that they had as pets and just release them in the Everglades. And now the Everglades have a really large python population, a non-native python population. Because people are stupid and they

didn't realize that that python was going to get large. Exactly. Yeah. Go humans. Yeah. You got anything else? That's it, man. That's snakes. That's all I got. You got anything else? Nothing else. All right. Well, since we have nothing else, we want you to go learn more about snakes. You can type the word snakes in the search bar at howstuffworks.com and check out our podcast page for this episode with all sorts of cool extra links. And since I said cool, it's time for Listener Mail. Hey guys, my name is Kristen. I'm going to call this, hey guys, my name is Kristen. Okay. Lupus. Slash Lupus. I want to send an email thanking both of you, even though my relatively new fan, I really think you are saving my life. A year and a half ago at 22, I was diagnosed with

Lupus, which is a progressive autoimmune disease. And about six to eight months ago, I started also struggling with the depression. My boyfriend Ross tried every trick in the book, and eventually I wasn't even getting out of bed. I started to have passive suicidal idealization. It was a very dark time. My family really joined together to get me help, though. I have a great psychiatrist, great therapist, and I'm proud to say I am recovering. YouTube factor in because my boyfriend recommended I listen to podcast on panic attacks. He found it to be a really helpful tool when he was trying to figure out how to help me cope. I couldn't leave my bed, but I did have my iPhone, so I listened and I kept listening and kept listening for days. Eventually I started laughing

again and then I started looking at the articles related to topics of the podcast and being like, this is like the same thing. And it really gave me something new and positive to talk about with my friends and family. I listened to the show when I feel like I'm going to have an episode of panic. It helps me to breathe and to laugh. Oh, that is so cool. It is. It stimulates my brain and keeps me thinking, wondering, and in awe of all sorts of awesome things. So thank you for your help and please keep up the amazing work. I still have plenty of content to get through, but I hope the two of you keep making the podcast for plenty of time to come. We will. We have no plans to stop anytime soon. And that is from Kristen Wolfe and she's a native Atlanta, but she is in Washington,

D.C. So Kristen, you should come out and see our show in June in Washington, D.C. Yeah. Talk about relaxing. What do you see alive? Well, yeah, but it's also extremely exciting too. Yeah, that's true. Thanks a lot, Kristen, for sharing that. We're glad we got to help you out. And thanks, Ross, the boyfriend for helping her out. Way to go, Ross. Yeah. I mean, nice job. I agree. If you want to get in touch with us to let us know anything, how we've helped you out, how we messed you up, whatever, you can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com and check out our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

And it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me. And my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes, because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.