Today, scientists know a species of snake that can rightfully be called the fastest in the world. We are talking about a reptile living in Africa - the black mamba. Few European residents know which snake is the fastest and that it lives on the southernmost continent of the world. However, local residents are familiar with it firsthand.

The fastest snake, whose speed can exceed 20 km/h, prefers life in savannah and steppe conditions, but often visits the homes of people living in African countries. It is noteworthy that existing myth The idea that a black mamba can pursue a victim for a long time is just a fiction. She can move at great speed, but only for short distances. In this article we will look at what is the fastest snake in the world where it lives, its methods of movement and body structure.

Habitats

The black mamba is exceptional African species snake. It is distributed throughout Africa, but its most preferred areas are the arid areas of the southern and eastern parts of the continent. The main habitats are savannas and woodlands. Mostly the fastest snake leads a terrestrial lifestyle, but sometimes climbs trees. The black mamba has a very wide habitat. These reptiles are often found in Namibia, KwaZulu-Natal, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique, Congo, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. In addition, experts claim that encounters with this reptile have been recorded more than once in the territories of Rwanda and Burundi.

The black mamba is not adapted to life in trees, so it lives in savannas, among small bushes. Often, in order to bask in the sun, she climbs a tree, but spends most of her life on the ground. In rare cases, the reptile settles in termite mounds and tree hollows. In addition, there are numerous cases where the fastest snake settled in people's houses. As a rule, it is attracted to small rodents adjacent to humans.

Appearance

What is the feature of the fastest snake on land that gives it its name? Not everyone knows the answer to this question. This reptile got its name not from its body color, but from a feature of its mouth that gives it an eerie appearance and mortal danger to humans. The size of the fastest snake makes it the second largest poisonous snake in a post-King Cobra world. It can reach 4 meters in length, but this is maximum size. The standard length of the average individual is from 2 to 3 meters.

Although this reptile bears this name, its color is far from black. It got its name from the unusual coal-black color of its mouth. The snake's body itself is dark olive shade with a metallic sheen. At the same time, the back part, closer to the end of the tail, is darker than the rest of the body. The abdomen of the black mamba has a light Brown color. Adults have a darker body color, while juveniles are much lighter.

Black mamba skull

Like other species of snakes, this reptile has a diapsid-type skull with reduced temporal arches. In addition, it is also kinetic, which indicates the possibility of moving bones apart. This function is especially important when swallowing food. The bones of the skull are divided into a number of types: quadrate, temporal, squamosal and maxillary bones. The jaws, both upper and lower, are separated by ligaments that have good elasticity. They are also movably connected to each other, thanks to which the black mamba is able to swallow prey that exceeds the size of its mouth.

Jaws and teeth

The black mamba has well-developed teeth, which are present on both the upper and lower jaws. The teeth are 6.5 millimeters long. They have a thin shape and are very sharp. This is necessary to gradually push food into the esophagus.

It is noteworthy that the jaws and teeth of this reptile, like those of other species of snakes, are not intended for chewing function. In addition to small sharp teeth that serve as food guides, the black mamba has long poisonous teeth. They are hollow and directly connected to the glands that produce poison. When a bite occurs, poison is injected into the victim's body through the poisonous teeth. Interesting fact The point here is that the black mamba, unlike other poisonous snakes, does not make one bite, but a series, during which it is capable of injecting up to 450 milligrams of poison. The lethal dose for humans is 10-15 milligrams.

One of the main features of the black mamba is the shape of its jaws. If you look at it carefully, it may seem that the reptile is smiling. But this smile does not add to her cuteness. When encountering this creature, you need to be extremely careful. A black mamba bite to the leg area can kill a person in 2 hours, but if it is in the vein area, the poison will be fatal in a few minutes.

Spine

Since this reptile does not have developed limbs, there are no specific sections in its spine. It has increased flexibility, uniformity and great length. It is noteworthy that the vertebrae are all absolutely identical and the same identical ribs are attached to them. Their number depends on the size of the snake. It is reliably known that the fastest snake can have up to 430 vertebrae. It has no sternum, like other species of snakes. Thanks to this feature, the snake can curl into rings as much as its length allows.

Limbs

Like other species, the limbs of the world's fastest snake are atrophied. However, experts who examined several individuals from different parts of Africa found that the snakes that live in the northern part of the continent have minor rudiments of the pelvic bones. They are more pronounced than those of the southern inhabitants.

How does a black mamba move?

The black mamba, like many other species of snakes similar to it, moves in two main ways. The first method is the so-called accordion movement. The reptile gathers its entire body together, then, burying its tail in the surface of the earth, pushes off and thanks to this moves forward. After this movement, she pulls up the back of her body, gathering herself into a ball again.

The second method of movement is moving with a caterpillar. Using this method, the black mamba moves in a straight line and overcomes various crevices. It is noteworthy that it is precisely when moving on a flat, straight surface that it is able to develop its record high speed. When a snake moves in this manner, it uses its ventral scales, sinking them into the ground. When the scales are underground, the reptile uses muscles to move them towards the tail. As a result, the scales are repelled in turn from the surface of the soil and set the snake’s body in motion. According to experts, this method resembles rowing with oars in its movement of scales.

MOSCOW, January 13 - RIA Novosti. For the first time, biologists have accurately measured the speed at which a viper or rattlesnake throws out its head and bites its prey. The snake accelerates to 100 kilometers per hour in just 79 milliseconds, according to Scientific Reports magazine.

“In nature, all encounters between predators and prey are unique - they are much more diverse than what we can see when they interact in the laboratory. Modern technologies"allowed us to understand what determines a successful hunt or escape from a predator, and move closer to uncovering the evolutionary factors that drive predators and their prey," said Timothy Higham from the University of California, Riverside.

Since the Middle Ages and even earlier eras, vipers, rattlesnakes and other representatives of the Viperidae family have been considered a symbol of lightning-fast reaction, ultra-high speed and almost guaranteed accuracy of attack on the victim.

All these snakes hunt small mammals and reptiles from ambush, jumping out at great speed, opening their mouths 180 degrees and literally “driving” their fangs into the flesh of the victim. Higham and his colleagues decided to study this process in detail by traveling to the Mojave Desert in the southwestern United States, where rattlesnakes live in abundance.

Having placed camera traps, the scientists connected them to a computer and centrally monitored the hunting of snakes, whose favorite prey is American kangaroo jumpers (Dipodomys merriami) - large rodents similar to jerboas and moving along the sand in the same “jumping” manner.

To film the snakes, scientists used high-speed infrared cameras capable of capturing 500 frames per second in 3D, as well as special systems thermal "backlight".

Observations immediately dispelled one of the myths: it turned out that snakes quite often miss, flying over or not reaching the rodent, especially if it managed to last moment spot a predator. On the other hand, it turned out that snakes actually move very fast.

On average, a snake bites a rodent within 60-70 milliseconds after it comes within the throwing radius. During this time, the snake's head flies about 12-16 centimeters, moving at a speed of three and a half meters per second and accelerating its movement by 170-506 meters per second per second. This corresponds to a g-force of 50g - the maximum a person can experience - and is approximately the same speed as the deployment of an airbag in a car.

Despite such impressive speeds and acceleration, the hunt of snakes for rodents ended in success only in half of the cases - in the rest, the jumpers managed to react to the snake’s throw and escape using the muscular “springs” in their legs. In some cases, even this was not required, since the snake made a mistake in calculating the “ballistics” of the throw and missed.

As Higham explains, an evolutionary "arms race" forced jumpers to learn to store energy in their tendons and release it sharply in critical situations. When a snake lunges at a rodent, it quickly jumps up greater height, and the viper flies through the place where he stood 30 milliseconds ago.

100 great records of wildlife Nepomnyashchiy Nikolai Nikolaevich

FASTEST SNAKE - BLACK MAMBA

With a speed of 19 km/h, the black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) is the fastest snake in the world. It can sting even at head level. The snake reaches more than 4 m in length. Adults are dark brown or black on top, and the ventral side is light brown or off-white. Young specimens are green in color.

The black mamba is distributed from Senegal to Somalia and from Ethiopia to South-West Africa. However, it does not penetrate into tropical rain forests Congo Basin. This snake is less adapted than other species to life in trees and usually lives among sparse tree or shrub vegetation. When irritated or disturbed, the black mamba opens its mouth wide, using this as a threatening technique.

Mambas are the true scourge of Africa. Neither cobras nor vipers are feared here as much as these, mainly arboreal, snakes. There have been cases where people died 20 minutes after being bitten. In the branches of trees, this snake is perhaps even more swift.

“Those born to crawl cannot fly!” - said Maxim Gorky. But the classic was wrong. Thin, big-eyed snakes from the genus Chrysopelea (a subfamily of false snakes), living in Indonesia, the Philippines, Southern China and Sri Lanka, cover a distance of 60–80 m in the air. However, they do not have wings! These wonderful creatures start from the tops of tall trees, along whose branches, by the way, they jump no worse than squirrels. And one more remarkable fact: they fly irregularly, but only when they are overcome by unbearable hunger.

It has long been known that some snakes hear perfectly and react vividly to music. It is on this ability that the “snake spell” is based (again, we are talking about cobras) in the countries of the East. Previously, it was believed that poisonous reptiles were deeply indifferent to what melody the “trainer’s” flute played. However, recent studies have led to sensational results: snakes feel music very subtly and treat the compositions performed differently, as evidenced by their behavior during the session. To the soundtrack of classical works by Mozart, Handel and Ravel, the cobras dance with obvious pleasure, eyes closed; rock compositions make their movements sharp and nervous; and Russian pop music causes lethargy and apathy.

Everyone knows that the snake is an emblem of medicine. Which one exactly? Ancient myths name as such a half-meter-long grayish-yellow Aesculapian snake with white spots on its back, living in the south of Europe. The terrible plague epidemic that raged in Ancient Rome, stopped when the embassy of the Eternal City delivered this snake to its homeland from the Greek Epidaurus, where it lived in the temple of the god Asclepius. The Romans immediately declared the glorious animal sacred and associated it with medicine for centuries.

The worst enemies of poisonous snakes are known: man, mongoose, hedgehog, secretary bird... But the worst thing, probably for snakes... is a pig. Rattlesnakes were once a nuisance to American farmers. They found a way to fight them by accident, after noticing one day how one pig trampled and ate a snake, whose bite is fatal to humans, bulls and horses. Therefore, before plowing a new field, the owners allowed a herd of pigs into the field and after that they calmly cultivated the land in full confidence that there were no rattlers left.

American researchers claim that the same biblical tempting snake that began the history of mankind is the Asian apple snake - the only snake that eats apples and climbs trees. By the way, today there are almost no such snakes left in nature - they have been exterminated.

THE MOST POIMOUS GROUND SNAKE IS THE CRUEL SNAKE The fierce snake (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) reaches a length of 1.9 m. The color of the back varies from dark brown to straw; varies depending on the time of year - in winter this snake is noticeably darker. The head may turn glossy black