Latest Snake Stories

Pittsburgh police said a 17-year-old faces theft and animal cruelty charges for allegedly using a snake from his school's biology room as a jump rope.Authorities said the student stole the snake Monday from Allderdice High School and was later seen using the reptile as a jump rope, KDKA-TV, Pittsburgh, reported Wednesday.The teenager will be charged in juvenile court, police said.The snake survived the experience and is being examined by a veterinarian.

Australian researchers have discovered what makes the Komodo dragon's bite so deadly for its prey.Scientists previously considered that the world's largest lizard's mouth held deadly bacteria that stopped its victims' blood from clotting. Walter Auffenberg put that theory forward in 1981.But lead researcher Bryan Fry used magnetic resonance imagery to show that the deadly lizard packs a venomous bite, as seen through its venom gland with ducts that lead to their teeth.Fry used 3-D computer...

A New York state man said he discovered a severed snake head among the vegetables on his plate at a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant.Jack Pendleton said he was dining with his girlfriend at the Clifton Park restaurant when he noticed a gray object on his plate under a piece of broccoli, the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union reported Thursday.I could see these black, rotted eye sockets on the top, he said.Pendleton said the snake head still had part of a tendon and the spinal chord attached.Amy Freshwater,...

A British letter carrier got an unpleasant surprise when a venomous snake lurking in a post box bit him on the hand. Alan Wakley told the Burnham & Highbridge Weekly News he is sure the snake, small and olive-green in color, was an adder. But he said his hand did not become swollen so the snake may not have actually injected him with venom, although he could see the mark of its fangs. The collection box in Brean Cove in Somerset, set into a wall, has now been sealed off with a sign: Out...

The Kansas Herpetological Society is looking for volunteers willing to spend hours searching for animals they might normally avoid -- say, for instance, snakes. The society's planned animal count will cover turtles, lizards, salamanders, frogs and toads as well as snakes, The Emporia (Kansas) Gazette reported. The event is scheduled for April 26 and April 27 in Chase County in eastern Kansas. Lest the actual seeking out these animals sound daunting, consider this: these folks are the...

Authorities in Kenya said a 13-foot python that attacked a farm worker disappeared from a wildlife farm one day after it was captured by police. Police and farm owner Tukero ole Kina said they rushed to Kina's farm after worker Ben Nyaumbe phoned his boss to say he had been attacked by the snake and had fallen out of a tree, The Daily Nation reported Thursday. Kina said police captured the snake and Nyaumbe was treated at a local hospital. Malindi police said the snake was taken to Falconry...

An Australian airline said two flights were canceled due to the escape of four baby pythons from a container in a plane's cargo hold. Qantas bosses said workers discovered that a shipment of 12 non-venomous Stimson pythons in the cargo hold of a plane that arrived in Melbourne from the city of Alice Springs was light four snakes, Britain's The Daily Mail reported Thursday. Officials said the Boeing 737 was grounded after staff members were unable to locate the escaped pythons. At first we...

The broad-headed snake, found only in the Sydney area, has become the rarest venomous snake in Australia because of too many trees, an expert says. The snake, classified as endangered by New South Wales, is now found only in isolated populations within 100 miles or so of Sydney. Rick Shine, a professor at the University of Sydney, told The Sydney Morning Herald he and other researchers compared photographs of Morton National Park south of Sydney from the 1940s and the 1970s with modern...

University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues have answered a question that has puzzled biologists for more than a century: What is the main factor that determines a lizard's ability to shed its tail when predators attack?The answer, in a word: Venom.Tail-shedding, known to scientists as caudal autotomy, is a common anti-predator defense among lizards. When attacked, many lizards jettison the wriggling appendage and flee. The predator often feasts on the tail while the lucky lizard...

Conserving Australia's most endangered snake might mean lighting more bush fires, ecologists have proposed.The last remaining populations of broad-headed snakes are being threatened by encroaching woodland that is destroying their habitat, a study by scientists from the University of Sydney and Stanford University (USA) has shown."Broad-headed snakes are only found living in small pockets within 200 km of Sydney, and those small communities are fast becoming extinct or increasingly more...