In Honour of Saint Patrick's Day - SNAKES!

By Claire Eamer

This day, March 17, is St. Patrick's Day, celebrated around the world by the Irish, the formerly Irish, the wannabe-Irish, and beer drinkers of all persuasions. It's generally marked by a lot of green - green clothing, green-dyed flowers, green-dominated parades, and that abomination - green beer.

But no snakes. Snakes almost certainly don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day (even though many of them are noticeably and naturally green). After all, St. Patrick is famous for driving the snakes out of Ireland. But did he?

A green tree python relaxes in comfort, using its own
body as furniture.

Sadly for legend, Ireland was snake-deprived long before St. Patrick arrived more than 1500 years ago. The cold temperatures and ice sheets of the last major glaciation drove snakes and other reptiles south. When the world warmed up about 10,000 years ago and the snakes moved back north, they were blocked by the cold waters of the Irish Sea. The few snakes that made it that far north simply settled down among the forests and hills of Britain and left the island of Ireland alone.

The Irish probably don't regret the lack of snakes, but they might be missing something. Snakes are amazing and quite beautiful. A few years ago, I wrote a book about animals adapting to extreme habitats (Lizards in the Sky: Animals Where You Least Expect Them) - and one of my favourite examples was the flying snakes of Southeast Asia.

The elegant rainbow boa is popular among collectors.

"Flying snakes?!?" you ask. (Well, most people ask that.) Really and truly! A small group of snakes in the jungles of Malaysia and Borneo has developed the ability to glide through the air. They fling themselves from a high branch, flatten out their bodies, and swim through the air in a wriggly glide. The most accomplished species, the paradise tree snake, has been seen to glide more than 20 metres - far enough to take it safely over a five-lane highway with room to spare.

And then there are the swimming snakes. "No, no... not swimming snakes too!" you cry. (I'm sure I heard you cry that.) Yup. Sea snakes, in fact.

Snakes taste tiny bits of scent in the air with their
tongues. The two forks of the tongue give the snake
a sort of stereo smelling capacity so it can tell
which direction the smell comes from.

Actually, sea snakes are quite common in the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, but most of them stay in the shallows close to shore.

The exception is the yellow-bellied sea snake, which is born at sea and lives there its entire life. Coolest fact? The yellow-bellied sea snake can tie itself in a knot. It loops around itself into a simple knot and runs the loop from one end of its body to the other to scrape off parasites and dead scales.

See what you're missing, Ireland?

Claire Eamer likes strange animals and weird facts and science of almost any kind. Her latest book is What a Waste! Where Does Garbage Go? (Annick Press, 2017).