How does a snake smell? Where is his sense of smell?

snakes

The snake is a meat-eating reptile, it has no legs, and it belongs to the serpent family. The body of the snake is cylindrical and covered with shiny scales that keep its body from friction and dryness. Snakes change their skin more than once a year by rubbing their skin with any wooden surface, there are no eyelids The eyes of snakes are covered with transparent scales to protect them, and snakes are cold-blooded, which makes them unable to regulate their internal body temperature, so there are no snakes in cold places.
The number of species of snakes reaches 2,900 worldwide, and the number of venomous species of snakes reaches 375 species. The reticulated python is the longest type of snake, reaching 30 feet or about 9 meters in length, and the Barbados snake is the shortest type of snake, reaching Its length is only 4 inches or about 10 cm only. As for the anaconda snake, it is the heaviest type of snake by weight. Some snakes lay eggs, and most of them give birth.

types of snakes

Python snakes: They include pythons, boas, and anacondas. They are considered one of the largest and heaviest snakes in weight, and they kill their prey by pressing them with the force of their sphincters.
Orchid snakes: These types of snakes kill their prey through the poison inside their body and transmitted through their hollow fangs, and after killing them, the snake begins to devour its prey, and there are many lengths in these types of snakes, some of which are no longer than a few centimeters, and some are up to length To 4 meters, and species of cobra, coral snake, and mamya.
Hannah snakes: This type of snake transmits poison through its fangs for equestrians while chewing. However, there are many harmless types, and some of them are very dangerous, such as the African tree, serpent, and the types of Hannah snakes, the king snake, the water snake, and the garter snake, The black snake.
Snakes: The real snakes, the pit viper, and the rattlesnake are the most dangerous types of snakes.

Snake sense of smell

The snake has a nose that smells through the smells transmitted through the air, while the smells transmitted through moisture are picked up by the snake through the tongue, where the snake has a tongue with two branches and the ability to move very quickly.

And when the snake moves its tongue out of its mouth, it picks up chemical odors from the air and from the ground to transfer them to another organ for smell located in the roof of the mouth and it is called the nasal volar organ or what is known as the Jacobson's organ. The olfactory center in the brain locates and interprets the source of odors.

The Jacobson olfactory organ of the snake was discovered by the Danish physician Ludwig in 1813, but the function of this organ was not determined or understood until nearly 100 years after Ludwig's death, and this organ was also discovered in mammals and amphibians.

The sense of sight when the snake.

Snakes have a very weak sense of vision because of the environment they live in, where snakes live in dark burrows, but there are snakes that have adapted to live by the day, and snakes can see Things, but they are unable to distinguish details, and some types of snakes have two spots on each side. The headworks through infrared rays and each spot consists of two areas separated by a membrane at the end of sensory neurons that allow it to detect prey from a distance, where the snake's head can form an image of the Forms the prey without seeing it, and despite the cobra snake's poor sight, it has the ability to accurately shoot poison at the eyes of hunters and enemies.

Sense of hearing when the snake

Although snakes do not have an external ear, they are not deaf, because they have a hearing device inside the head linked to the jawbones, through which the snake can sense vibrations, and low sounds, carried by air, as these vibrations are transmitted through the jawbones to the bones of the middle ear and then to The inner ear of the snake.

snake feeding

The snake is a carnivore, and the cobra snake kills its prey through its venom, and we find that most snakes swallow the prey as it is, as most large-sized snakes wrap around the prey and choke it and then swallow it like a python, and the digestive enzymes in the snake's stomach analyze the prey and transform it To the energy needed for the snake's body to carry out all the processes and vitality.

It is also known that snakes remain for a long time without food because their metabolism is very slow, and snakes can eat large prey because of the strength of their lower jawbones.

Where the lower jaw of snakes consists of two non-adherent pieces, but the bones of the two pieces are connected by a flexible ligament that enables them to move and diverge with ease if required, and the bones of the jaws of snakes do not have a link with the skull, so they find flexibility in movement with the ability to devour any prey no matter what. was its size.

Snakes and humans

Snakes are associated with many ancient stories and legends, especially in India, where the cobra wraps the face of the Hindu god Shiva in many drawings, and offers her many boats, and is celebrated in a special way and rituals.

In addition, snakes have an important role in the environment, as they rid the environment of mice, and humans raise them as a kind of pet, but the human relationship with snakes is not good at all, due to the danger of many of their species to human life, as there are some species that can poison them It kills humans within minutes, though there are some harmless species.

Although the Indian cobra is a very dangerous venomous snake that humans have been able to use as a means of entertainment and entertainment for the masses, where the Indian magician plays the flute and in front of him is a basket containing the cobra and when he starts playing the cobra begins to get out of the basket and dance, but the cobra is deaf and the movement that it makes It is just a defensive move due to the movement of the magician's hand and the oboe.

The strongest sense of smell among animals

Bear: Although the bear has a small head, equivalent to one-third the size of the human head, it is considered one of the animals that has the strongest sense of smell among animals, as the area responsible for the sense of smell inside the bear’s brain is equal to five times the sense of smell in the human brain, so the sense of smell exceeds when The bear is 2100 times the human sense of smell. The bear's strong sense of smell helps prevent him from being in danger and know the whereabouts of his companions and where the food is. Through his sense of smell, he can know the location of animal carcasses from about 20 miles away.
Shark: The shark is characterized by having a strong sense of smell that makes it smell one drop of blood between 100 liters of water, and makes its sense of smell able to identify its prey from a mile away, due to the large size of the olfactory center in the shark's brain.