Snakes and Other Reptiles (Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #23)

by Mary Pope Osborne

Reptiles come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Some, like saltwater crocodiles, can weigh over 2,000 pounds.

Reptiles never stop growing. As they grow, they must shed their outer skin. This is called molting.

All reptiles except birds are cold-blooded. This doesn’t mean that their blood is cold. It means that they can’t make their own body heat. They control their temperature by moving from sun to shade.

All reptiles are vertebrates. People are also vertebrates. Vertebrates have skeletons with backbones. Backbones are made up of a series of small bones called vertebrae.

The body temperature of warm-blooded animals stays the same in spite of the outside temperature. People are warm-blooded, too.

Snakes cannot back up. Instead, they make a sort of U-turn.

Because snakes can’t hear sounds in the air, you can bang a drum, shoot a cannon, or sing “Yankee Doodle” and a snake won’t hear you. But if you walk near where it’s hiding, vibrations from your footsteps tell it that you are there.

All snakes are meat eaters. Small snakes eat rodents, lizards, birds, fish, eggs, and insects. Larger snakes eat bigger animals such as deer, monkeys, sheep, pigs, and goats.

Antivenin is a medicine for snakebites. To create it, small amounts of venom can be injected into animals such as goats or horses. The animals’ blood builds up protection against the snake venom, which is extracted as antivenin.

One king cobra bite has enough venom to kill a cow or an elephant or twenty people!

Unlike other reptiles, crocodilians frequently lose and grow teeth.

In its lifetime, a crocodilian goes through as many as three thousand teeth.

Tortoises are large land turtles. Because they live on land, tortoises don’t need webbed feet or flippers like other turtles. Instead, they have short, round legs for walking.

Experts can tell the age of a turtle by markings on its shell called growth rings.

Amazing Snakes! by Sarah L. Thomson • Reptile, a DK Eyewitness Book, by Colin McCarthy • Reptiles, National Audubon Society First Field Guide, by John L. Behler • Slither and Crawl: Eye to Eye with Reptiles by Jim Arnosky • The Snake Scientist, Scientists in the Field series, by Sy Montgomery

Snakes by Seymour Simon