04-Feb-2007

Pythons and boas

Pythons and boas belong to a group of snakes called Boidae or constrictors. They kill by squeezing their prey. At first it was believed that this strangled their prey but the prey dies too quickly for this to be possible. In fact they squeeze their prey so hard that it stops the blood flowing, so the victim goes into cardiac arrest (their heart stops) and dies. The Boidae family are the largest family of snakes. Some types are kept as pets, because they are not poisonous, but they can still be dangerous (see the newspaper clipping at the back of my project).

I have looked at two examples of constrictors – the Reticulated Python and the Anaconda

Harmless snakes

I have looked at a corn snake  as an example of a snake that is not dangerous to humans and is kept as a pet.

Poisonous snakes

I have looked at the Black Mamba and the King Cobra. These are the two most poisonous snakes in the world