We disassemble the snake

^{A schematic diagram of a snake, painted by a beautiful Sh. A.G. with my words}

My girlfriend in the twenty-fifth year of life took a snake in her arms and was surprised that she was sweet and warm. So, I'm still terribly afraid of snakes, but I can't help but admit that they are beautiful . Not always in terms of aesthetics, but in terms of engineering design - for sure.

Well, around them a lot of misunderstandings.
')
Let's start with the fact that snakes are pleasant to the touch. They are not mucous, but dry and most often warm (in most places where you can find them in nature, because they are not warm-blooded). But until we go further, let us immediately agree that after reading the post, you will not throw a cuddle with all the oncoming snakes. Among them there are many poisonous, and among the poisonous there are many who kill a person at a time. And many are moving at the same time faster than your reaction.

There are snakes who can spit poison into your eyes. There are snakes that fucking fucking. There are snakes that can move under the sand like little versions of the Dune worm.

But let's start with the analysis of the snake. From the case.

Housing

In general, there were lizards, and then something went wrong, and their legs fell off. In general, as it turned out, the legs are not needed. Legs are atavism. You can perfectly crawl all over and move no less quickly.

So have snakes. Then the lizards fell off their feet a couple of times in later editions, but the snakes did not work anymore, they produced legless lizards.

In general, the enhancer, which is responsible for the legs, simply stopped working in the snake genome. That is, the code of the legs in the snake is completely there, but this constructor function is not called when creating an object.

Then evolution went on top of all this. Compared with legless lizards, snakes are arranged a little differently: they have joints of the left and right sides of the jaws (to eat a really big mouse), otherwise the portholes are arranged, there is no eardrum or shoulder girdle.

Snake covered in skin. The skin is formed by scales. In the front, where the snake has eyes, there are not holes in the fuselage for these peepholes, but natural portholes. Scales just transparent in this place. So the snake itself sits inside the case and looks out from there through two windows to the outside. That is, such a casing with windows on top of the rest of the snake. Therefore, it does not blink.

At the bottom of the snake may (or may not be) a caterpillar - a special layer of scales in order to better adhere to the surface. Because you need to rest something when you crawl.

Sometimes the snake leaves its fuselage - shed. The skin is divided into two layers, old and unnecessary new. The snake crawls out of the old casing and for some time tries not to burn too much around. In general, shedding is an awesome plan, because you can quickly update the most damaged parts. It's also a great way to get the hell out of parasites, the same small ticks. They remain chumped on old skin. Because conservative and do not like change. When the snake crawls away, they may have some time holding meetings to optimize the work of their organization, because there is a tendency to decline.

While the snake grows, it molts more often, but now it is proved that it is not because it ceases to fit inside itself. More precisely, this is not the main reason.

Cabin

The snake, like us, eats in the head. Like us, she has a brain there. Food usually comes across so healthy that you have to stretch your head very strongly so that the food crawls inside. Snakes have not thought of a knife and fork yet, therefore they swallow, that they will catch, entirely. Usually. So, so that the food did not damage the snake head, a special movable skull was developed with good reservation from the side of the food. The mouth of a snake opens in different directions, and at the same time the brain shifts up or back a little. “Brainstorming” is literally about them. Heart, they also often know how to move. How else can we put so much in it?

The next awesome thing in the snake's cabin is the odor sensor. The snake takes a sample of the medium with the tongue, sticks the tongue into the analyzer (there are two different types of organs, and both are very interesting, but for now let's call it the analyzer) and get a taste of what she “smelled”. As butterflies get the taste of surrounding objects with their feet (legs), so snakes can “try” you from 50 meters away. Or further. That is why butterflies try not to land on manure heaps.

The coolest thing about this set of organs is that the snake will quickly stick the tongue out in the other direction and be able to take another sample of the smell there. So after a while she trilatery you. Moreover, by this moment you will be “licked” from all sides, that is, the snake will know exactly what you are and how tasty. And it works even under water. Do not try to escape from the snake around the corner, it can take a vector by smell.

On the other hand, the eyes are quite simple. Many snakes frankly fucking see. Which is logical, those who fall on you from the trees usually see better than those who sneak up on you underground. In most practical cases, the eyes are needed in order to either quickly respond to a very small distance to the movement of prey (the rest of the senses require fairly long data processing) or to determine the intensity of light. Focusing, if any, is done by moving the lens. We have much later versions of libraries with eyes, so we change the curvature of the lens.

Ahead of the snake hung thermal imager. The most advanced versions of snakes can not only assess the overall level of heat (which already gives you the opportunity to turn your head and find warm-blooded prey perfectly), but also take exact vectors for one measurement (pit), because they already have two thermal imagers, and they can quickly expect some kind of stereo pair.

The imager is tied up with quite a few sections of code rewritten in assembler (reflex arcs), so when you see a whole mouse in front, it happens that the snake first attacks, and then the information reaches the brain. This is how the snakes mastered the night, although usually the night was always the time when the miserable warm-blooded people accidentally gnawed at a large dinosaur slowed by the cold.

They do not have membranes, so snakes can hear them. Like a rover, which has attached a seismic sensor to the surface and listens to the wind in the surface. So, the snake perfectly distinguishes vibrations in the soil and even sounds, which also become such vibrations. True, the frequencies are only those that are far spread over ordinary land. That is, do not scold the snake with a bass.

You can listen to the rover here .


^{Sandy boa crawls in this layer of sand}

Skeleton

She has very dofig vertebrae. This makes the snake is not just a crawling sausage, but a very strong and mobile crawling sausage. Therefore, Gaudi was inspired by this design for his catenary arches.

Here are two pictures from my post about its architecture :

Lifestyle

All snakes are predatory. And this is where poison is needed: some wet the prey with an injection through a tooth, the rest either strangle inside or twine and strangle it outside. In this regard, I remember the story about the aborigines of Australia, who love python. From the point of view of the aborigine, the python is the meat that climbs itself to hug. And it is immediately convenient to carry him to the tribe.

Snakes breed eggs. It was getting colder around, and evolution did not stand still, so first the firmware version appeared with a well-marked crutch. In it, the snake lays the egg directly into its body. And he carries it with him, almost like a real viviparous kengurukh, only this egg, and no bag.

The principal difference is that in viviparous, the embryo is included in the main food circuit, and in the egg-distributing species, it is encapsulated in an egg along with a supply of food.

Lizards also know how to eggs and live birth. Why I was distracted by lizards - because here, just a couple of months ago , a three-toed skink was observed , which first laid eggs, and then gave birth to a baby.

Well, then the next step of refactoring - you can skip the egg, and here you will be a real viviparous snake. True, in the process of testing was a couple of interesting assemblies. For example, the release of Indotyphlops braminus consists only of females. Eggs develop without fertilization, parthenogenesis. Even in snakes, in general, the frequency of appearance of two-headed individuals is increased (the error of encapsulating two pieces in one egg) - but they are most often dead in the wild, because they do not live very long. It is necessary to choose which way to crawl, if a puffing hedgehog creeps up to you. Even these two heads can fight each other, which also does not end well.

Snakes can also bite fish. If you have ever tried to bite a fish, then you should know that a fish is to go nuts in terms of metabolism. Therefore, poison is needed strong. Therefore, some sea snakes are damn venomous.

Some snakes can go into hibernation and be nagged for quite a while without food and water, slowly spending their resources. Bear compared with them in energy efficiency just sucks. Paw

Hibernation is an awesome plan when you have to wait out bad days or a bad season. Others can use the amateur life hacking - wait out the drought.

Snakes are found almost everywhere, but if you are very afraid of them, you can live in the Antarctic, New Zealand (they did not crawl there), several Atlantic islands (like the Azores), or Iceland. Or go to Ireland, there still lives ale and also no snakes!

According to the latest WHO data , from 81 to 138 thousand people per year are killed by snake bites. In total, bites can be from 2.7 to 5.4 million people. Most of the cases occur in Africa and Asia, and the situation in India is the saddest in India (if you don’t look at the official statistics, there are details in the link report).



In general, these beasts have adapted to almost everything on the planet, which is very cool for a very, very old version of an animal. But the limitations of the platform to get around is still difficult. I'm still afraid of snakes, but I can't help but admire how cool they are.