Serpentes (Snakes)

Michael SY Lee, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Published online: April 2001

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0001543

Snakes are a diverse group of long-bodied, limb-reduced reptiles descended from lizards. They are of scientific, ecological and medical importance.

Keywords: vertebrates; reptiles; squamates; limblessness; venom; snakebite

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Further Reading
	book Bauchot R (ed.) (1994) Snakes: A Natural History. New York: Sterling.
	Caldwell MW and Lee MSY (1997) A snake with legs from the marine Cretaceous of the Middle East. Nature 386: 705–709.
	book Ernst CH and Zug GR (1996) Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
	book Greene HW (1997) Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
	book Rage JC (1984) Handbuch der Paläoherpetology: Serpentes. Stuttgart: Gustav Fisher.
	Schwenk K (1994) Why snakes have forked tongues. Science 263: 1573–1577.
	book Seigel RA and Collins JT (eds) (1993) Snakes: Ecology and Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.
	book Seigel RA, Collins JT and Novak SS (eds) (1987) Snakes: Ecology and Evolution. New York: Macmillan.
	book Shine R (1991) Australian Snakes: A Natural History. Sydney: Reed Books; and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
	book Thorpe RS, Wüster W and Malhotra A (eds) (1997) Venomous Snakes: Ecology, Evolution and Snakebite. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

	Figure 1. The four major jaw systems found in snakes. The marginal element on the upper jaw is shown in pink, the elements on the roof of the mouth are shown in yellow, and the lower jaw element is shown in blue.
	Figure 2. The internal anatomy of a typical snake in ventral (belly) view. This specimen is a male. After drawing by D. Kirshner in Shine R (1991) Australian Snakes: A Natural History. Sydney: Reed; and Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
	Figure 3. The evolutionary relationships of the major groups of living and fossil snakes. The genus and species diversity of each group is shown in Table 1. Taxonomic distribution of the four types of venom-delivery systems (Figure 2) is indicated by colour coding. Asterisks indicate extinct forms.