In 1889, the naturalist Allan Octavian Hume wrote that he was puzzled by macabre decorations he observed in many birds’ nests: strips of dried snakeskin. “Are birds superstitious, I wonder? Do they believe in charms?” he wrote in “The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds.” If not, why were so many birds using pieces of…
You are in a desert and dying of thirst. All of a sudden, storm clouds appear overhead, and the sky starts to spit tiny drops of liquid. How would you quickly make the most of the potentially lifesaving precipitation? One more thing, you don’t have any hands. Prairie rattlesnakes have evolved an easy solution to…
Snakes like these are giants. Black mambas can stretch to 14 feet, and the longest king cobra ever recorded was 19 feet. Puff adders are petite by contrast, as short as six inches and no longer than six feet, but very thick. They have long, retractable fangs that can deliver poison into muscle. Their venom…
