Many people have an instinctive dislike, and sometimes even hatred of snakes. They seem cold, slimy, scaly, unpleasant. And for most people, all snakes are poisonous, dangerous, and harmful creatures by default. But actually it is not. In the world, of course, there are a huge number of snake species - from the smallest, but deadly poisonous coral aspids, to the majestic boa pythons, whose length is tens of meters. But only in our climatic zone they are found only in zoos, and even then not in all.
On the territory of Russia, the most common types of snakes are snake, and the steppe viper. The poisonous of them all is only the last. But at the same time, harmless snails often fall under the distribution - they are readily taken for vipers by people unaware of biology and purposefully destroyed, thinking that they got rid of the poisonous snake. What does it look like? The description in any biology textbook says that the correct name for this reptile is Natrix natrix. It lives throughout Europe, except for the polar regions. It is also not uncommon in the Far East, in Siberia and in the vicinity of Lake Baikal.
The first thing you should pay attention to when describing what it looks like is yellow specks near the ear canal at the border of the neck and head of the reptile. For this, snakes are often called jaundice. Thanks to bright spots, it is easy to distinguish it from vipers and snakes.
The length of the snake can reach 80-90 centimeters. Another distinguishing feature of how it looks already is the pattern on its scales. The entire upper body is covered with an intricate pattern. On a dark olive, black or brown tone of scales, black spots appear, most often staggered. Due to the dark and light edges of the scales, some individuals also have a mesh pattern over the entire surface of the body. But what it looks like from the side of the abdomen is a completely different matter. There, the scales are smaller in size, plain, colored in white or grayish tint.
Usually, snakes live along the banks of fluid reservoirs. In the mountains they rise to the level of 2500 meters, and very often choose places for nesting near human housing. By the way, in Ukraine and Belarus there are often cases of domestication of snakes by rural residents. These contact snakes are excellent mouse traps and successfully replace residents of private cat houses in the fight against rodents.
So it’s very useful to know what it looks like. The photos of these reptiles are usually very visual, so there should be no problems with recognition in the future for those who have at least been shown a yellow-eared mouse trap. And even more so, it’s not worth it to destroy. They are natural limiters of the population of small field rodents. In addition, they also feed on lizards and frogs. They may attack small birds, but this is extremely rare.
Now you know what an ordinary one looks like, and you will never confuse it with an adder. However, for your own comfort and safety, it is better to bypass all reptiles that you fear - this will be better both for yourself and for snakes hurrying about their snake business.
