Are there snakes in New Zealand? Frequently asked questions about New Zealand New Zealand sea lions

Almost everyone fears or dislikes snakes. There are three types of people: 1% love snakes (they pick them up, play with them, have them at home), 94% would like to stay away from them. And there are 5% who are afraid of snakes more than anything else. Everyone has a friend like this: nod at any string - oh, snake! And that’s it, he already squeals and runs away in horror. It's easier for them to die than to stay in a room with snakes. But how much do we know about snakes? The majority knows almost nothing - let's fix that.

Actually, snakes kill people all the time.

Do you think it is very rare and exotic to die from a snake bite? It depends where you live. If you live in India, bad news: more than 80 thousand people are bitten by vipers and cobras every year, and 10 thousand of them die. This is the most dangerous region in terms of snake activity and aggressiveness. Obviously, somewhere in Vermont the chances of encountering a snake are much less, but we implore you - watch your step, wherever you are.

Is there a place on Earth completely without snakes?

The general rule is: the colder it is, the fewer snakes there are. It’s almost safe in the Arctic Circle and Antarctica, but you can’t go there on vacation. Few snakes in Iceland, Ireland and New Zealand. Some countries are full of snakes, but generally most are non-venomous. It is important for you to know that the snakes themselves do not want to meet you at all; they avoid people with all their might. Actually, there's another great way to avoid snakes: stay home.

Vessey's Snake, Maine's Favorite

One of the places where there are no poisonous snakes is the American state of Maine. But they have a snake known as Vessie (similar to Nessie, the Loch Ness monster). They say she is as long as a huge truck and has a head the size of a football. Fear, of course, has big eyes. The press reported: "A snake was seen in the park area feasting on a large mammal - probably a beaver." What a great place, right in the park, next to the playgrounds, snakes the size of trucks eating beavers! This is where you should go on vacation - adventures are guaranteed.

Don't mess with the black Mamba

If you've ever seen Tarantino's Kill Bill, you probably remember the mention of the black mamba as the most dangerous snake. Most herpentological experts agree: the black mamba is the most dangerous of all snakes in the world. Why is the mamba a symbol of horror? What's so scary about it? In addition to its strong poison, the black mamba is damn fast and fast, reaching speeds of over 11 km/h over short distances. But that's not the main thing. Its open mouth is black on the inside and to many it seems like a coffin, which instantly makes it creepy. The mamba lives in Africa, so walk there with double caution.

Does the snake eye have no eyelids?

The unblinking gaze of a cold-blooded killer...fear has big eyes, what people can’t come up with! So why don't snakes blink? It turns out that it’s not because they don’t have eyelids. Snakes have eyelids, you just can’t see them - they are transparent and fused. The thin skin that protects the eyes comes off together with the snake's skin in one "stocking" when molting. So the hypnotizing gaze of a snake is a pure myth.

Lebanese commandos are so tough they eat live snakes

During the annual ceremony, Lebanese commandos tear live snakes with their teeth. The senseless cruelty is intended to confirm their willingness to defeat the enemy with their bare hands. Yeah, that's probably true: if you can tear apart and eat a live snake, then you can probably do a whole bunch of super-tough stuff on the battlefield. There's no time for jokes here, poor snakes.

It was no coincidence that Voldemort called Nagini that way

Nagini is a huge poisonous one that belongs to Lord Voldemort. In Sanskrit and North Indian languages, naga means "king cobra" and naginii is feminine, female cobra. In "Harry Potter" there is a clear reference to the character of Kipling's fairy tale "Riki-tiki-tavi", where the king cobra was called Nagana (actually that cobra was called "Naked", because Kipling almost all the names of animals are just their names in Hindi) . The transliteration “Nagaina” has taken root in the Russian translation, and it was this that was included in “Riki-Tiki-Tavi” and in “Harry Potter”.

What do rattlesnakes rattle?

Something, a rattle, of course! And not just like that, the rattlesnake seems to say: I’m here, don’t step on it, stay away from me! When a rattlesnake is excited, its tail vibrates and rattles the rings at the end of the tail hitting each other. The result is a sharp buzzing sound. It can be heard at a distance of 20 meters and can be avoided by the snake.

Fairytale boomslangs exist

The boomslang snake, whose skin someone was always trying to steal from Snape's laboratory in Harry Potter, actually exists (boomslang skin is an important ingredient in witchcraft potions, for example, it is part of Polyjuice Potion). Its name comes from the African boomslang and means "tree snake". The boomeslang's green eyes have excellent vision, and the snakes almost always manage to avoid encounters with humans. But if they are caught, they sting. There are even several deaths reported as a result of a boomslang bite.

Titanoboa were the largest snakes on Earth

Those who are afraid of snakes probably don’t need to imagine what titanoboa mastodons looked like (although they would be better off not reading this post at all). Titanoboa snakes are long extinct; they lived on Earth approximately 58 million years ago. They were huge: the length reached 15 meters, the girth of the body was about a meter, and the weight was more than a ton. Unfortunately, we are not destined to meet such beauty in reality, but there are models of giants in several museums.

Snake with a coin

The Barbados narrow-mouthed snake or "Charles' snake" is the smallest in the world. An adult baby snake is no longer than 10 centimeters. They live only on the island of Barbados in the Caribbean Sea. They are completely harmless, they don’t even have teeth. Apparently this is why the snake is on the verge of extinction (or because the forests where they lived were all cut down). And it was named by the American biologist Hedge in honor of his wife, herpentologist Carla Ann Hass, about whose character history is silent.

Taipans are the most poisonous

Australian inland taipan, also called the "fierce snake". If you want to look at taipans, they live in the central part of Australia. This is the most poisonous of land snakes; the venom in one bite is enough to kill a hundred people. So, it’s probably better not to meet with them, they are very fast: when they see danger, they raise their heads and sting with lightning speed several times in a row. Before the invention of the antidote in 1955, 90% of their victims died from the bite of taipans.

The snake's heart is mobile inside its body

The snake's heart is not fixed: due to the lack of a diaphragm, the snake's heart is mobile and is able to move inside its body, dodging damage when something large goes down the esophagus. So if a snake eats something really huge, its heart will just roll away and then come back. The cardiovascular system of snakes has a unique system where blood from the snake's tail passes through the kidneys before returning to the heart. Isn’t it true how wisely nature arranged everything?

The unique arrangement of internal organs is not at all human

This is exactly what you didn’t know: unlike the paired human organs, which are located symmetrically, the internal organs of a snake have an elongated shape, are completely asymmetrical and single. Some of the snake organs used to have a pair, but during the process of evolution they lost their significance and became unpaired. Most snakes have only one lung, the second is usually rudimentarily developed.

Deadly poisonous or slightly toxic - it is better not to experiment

The venom of a viper and a cobra, of course, is different from what a girlfriend might pour into your glass. Eaten poison and a poisonous snake bite somewhere in the neck are two different things, and in the second case the action occurs many times faster. Whether it is toxic or deadly is never known for sure, and individual reactions to a poison can be unpredictable. We hope you never have to find out about this in real life. And remember that the snake cannot harm you if it is at a distance. Watch your step, stay away from snakes and take care of yourself!

If you hate snakes and want to avoid encountering them at all costs, you should definitely go to New Zealand. After all, snakes are simply prohibited there (so much so that even their very existence is illegal).

Not only does this mean that you will never find a snake in the New Zealand wild (even if you do, it will soon be mercilessly destroyed). You can't keep snakes as pets there either. They are prohibited from being kept in zoos, research institutions or anywhere else. However, the owner of the snake will not get off with a small fine - just ask Nathan Bush.

In 2011, Bush purchased a pet snake. When she was discovered, he was brought to trial and sentenced to four months in prison. That's how serious New Zealand is about snakes. Essentially, if a New Zealander simply becomes aware of the existence of a snake in their country, they are legally obligated to report it to the authorities to help keep the country completely free of these reptiles.

Snakes are completely absent, at least on land in New Zealand. Fighting their sea counterparts, as you understand, is a little more difficult. Land snake species are not allowed into the country because none of them are native to the New Zealand islands.

New Zealand is famous for many things, including as the “land of the hobbits” (it was in this country that the film “The Lord of the Rings” was filmed). And, as it turns out, you can find a hissing Gollum there rather than a real snake. This is simply surprising given its proximity to southern Australia, home to some of the world's most dangerous snakes.

New Zealand is one of the few areas in the world where there are no snakes at all. Besides it, these are Greenland, Antarctica and partly the Hawaiian Islands. So if you are afraid of creepy crawlies, now you know where to go on holiday!

Snakes are found on every continent on Earth except Antarctica, so their complete absence on the island of Ireland seems strange. What causes reptiles to ignore this region?

Firstly, Ireland is an island separated from Great Britain by a strait 80 kilometers wide. Snakes living on land cannot overcome such a distance. But why then do snakes live in Great Britain, which is also an island and separated from the mainland by a fairly wide English Channel?

The reason for such a strange distribution of snakes should be sought in the geological history of our planet. Over the course of its existence, the Earth goes through ice ages - repeated stages lasting several million years when, due to a sharp cooling in the climate, significant growth of ice sheets occurs. The last ice age (part of the ice age) began on the planet about 110,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. Much of northern Europe, bound by permafrost, was finally freed from the ice that covered the British Isles.

Primitive tribes and animals began to migrate to the islands. But not all creatures could penetrate deep into the islands, where the cold climate continued to persist. Among them were snakes, which initially settled only in the south of Great Britain. The remaining glaciers continued to melt, gradually flooding the land route between Ireland and Great Britain. This is how the Northern Strait was formed between the two islands. Great Britain remained connected to the mainland for another 2,000 years, until it found itself cut off from it by the strait we call the English Channel.

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It turns out that snakes simply did not have enough time to populate Ireland, which at that time was still too cold for them for most reptiles. Snakes still managed to populate Great Britain, gradually moving deeper into the island along with climate warming.

For those who are not satisfied with the scientific explanation for the absence of snakes in Ireland, there is a beautiful legend. It tells that the island was saved from snakes by the Christian discoverer Saint Patrick, who gathered all the reptiles on Mount Crow and ordered them to throw themselves into the water. Only one old snake disobeyed and remained on the mountain. Then Patrick had to resort to cunning and bet with the snake that he would not be able to fit into a wooden chest standing nearby. The snake, wanting to prove Patrick wrong, climbed into the box, which the man immediately closed and threw into the sea. This is how Saint Patrick rid Ireland of snakes.

Be that as it may, the absence of snakes is typical not only for Ireland, but also for such large islands as New Zealand, Hawaii, Iceland and Greenland. But this does not always bring benefits to the territory. A snake accidentally introduced into the wild (for example, one that escaped from a zoo or pet store) can become an invasive species and cause irreparable damage to the environment by wiping out native species. This picture is observed on the island of Guam, where snakes were absent until recently. But the brown boyga, which was able to climb trees very well, was accidentally introduced into the ecosystem, multiplied and became a real disaster for local birds, almost completely exterminating the bird population.

Did you know that there are no snakes in New Zealand? And, not only are they not found in the wild, you won't even find them in local zoos and research laboratories.
Snakes are literally outlawed in New Zealand. Keeping and breeding reptiles of this species is strictly prohibited. You will be fined even if you simply saw a snake and did not report it to the appropriate authorities. However, according to the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries, which is responsible, among other things, for environmental safety, the likelihood of such an incident is virtually zero, because there really are no snakes in the country.

True, we need to clarify, terrestrial snakes. Two species of sea snakes - the yellow-bellied bonito (Pelamis platurus - pictured) and the sea krait (Laticauda colubrina) - are still found in New Zealand waters. However, these snakes never crawl onto land, and cases of their appearance near the New Zealand coast are quite rare. However, both species are poisonous, but do not pose a serious danger to humans, since they are too small for their venom to penetrate human skin when bitten.

By the way, if land snakes did appear in New Zealand, they would inevitably exterminate the main New Zealand symbol - the flightless kiwi bird (pictured).
Also, due to the absence of dangerous snakes and poisonous spiders, New Zealand is considered one of the safest countries in the world for outdoor travel.
So why are there no snakes in New Zealand?

For a long time it was believed that there were never snakes on the New Zealand islands. However, in the early 2000s, researchers from New Zealand and Australia discovered the remains of these reptiles (National Geographic News: “Fossil Find Proves New Zealand Once Had Snakes”). This discovery proved that 15-20 million years ago, snakes in New Zealand, apparently, were still found, but for some reason they completely died out.

It is believed that this could have happened during the Ice Age, when a sharp cold snap occurred in New Zealand. Subsequently, the geographical isolation of the islands was the reason that this species did not appear in New Zealand again.

Of course, if desired, creeping reptiles could have been introduced into the country long ago. For example, from neighboring Australia, where there are more than enough snakes of various types. However, the strict policies of the New Zealand authorities leave little chance that the snakes will ever appear in New Zealand again.

You're probably wondering, what does Malakhov have to do with it? I just made a Coub with Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, and at the same time I decided to add some useful information to the post. I'm done, kick me