I wonder how it looks like?

Many people experience instinctive dislike, and sometimes even hatred for snakes. They seem cold, slimy, scaly, unpleasant. And for most, so and so - all snakes are by default poisonous, dangerous and harmful creatures. But actually it is not. In the world, of course, there are a huge number of species of snakes - 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 except in zoos, and even then not in all.

On the territory of Russia, the most common types of snakes are a strop, and a steppe viper. Only the latter is poisonous. But at the same time innocuous homies often fall under the distribution - they are willingly mistaken for vipers ignorant in biology people and deliberately destroy, thinking that they got rid of a poisonous snake. How 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 environs of Lake Baikal.

The first thing you should pay attention to, describing how it looks like, is on the yellow spots near the ear canal on the border of the neck and head of the reptile. For this snake is often called zheltouhimi. Due to the bright spots, it is easy to distinguish from vipers and runners.

The length of the snake can reach 80-90 centimeters. Another distinguishing feature of how it looks, is the pattern on its scales. The whole upper part of the body is covered with an intricate pattern. On dark olive, black or brown tones of scales black spots appear, most often located in checkerboard pattern. Due to the dark and light edges of the scales, some individuals also have a mesh pattern across the entire surface of the body. But what looks like from the side of the abdomen is quite another matter. There scales are smaller in size, monophonic, painted in white or grayish shade.

Usually snakes dwell on the shores of flowing water bodies. In mountains, they rise to a level of 2500 meters, and very often they choose for nesting places near human habitation. By the way, on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus there are often cases of domestication of the snakes by rural residents. These contact snakes are excellent mousetraps and successfully replace residents of private cats in the fight against rodents.

So it's very useful to know how it looks like. The photos of these reptiles are usually very graphic, so problems with recognition in the future for those who have at least once been shown yellow-yellow mousetrap, should not arise. And especially the snakes should not be destroyed. They are natural limiters of the population of small field rodents. In addition, they also feed on lizards and frogs. They can attack the chicks of small birds, but this happens very rarely.

Now you know what the ordinary looks like , and you will never mistake it with an adder. However, for your own comfort and safety, it's better to avoid all the reptiles you fear, so it will be better for you and for snakes hurrying about their snake affairs.