Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes. Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. Legless lizards resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal.
Cobra is the common name of various elapid snakes, most of which belonging to the genus Naja.
Colubridae is a family of snakes. With 524 genera and approximately 1,760 species, it is the largest snake family, and includes just over 51% of all known living snake species. The earliest species of the family date back to the Oligocene epoch. Colubrid snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica.
The Crotalinae, commonly known as pit vipers, crotaline snakes, or pit adders, are a subfamily of venomous vipers found in Eurasia and the Americas. They are distinguished by the presence of a heat-sensing pit organ located between the eye and the nostril on both sides of the head. Currently, 18 genera and 151 species are recognized: seven genera and 54 species in the Old World, against a greater diversity of 11 genera and 97 species in the New World. These are also the only viperids found in the Americas. The groups of snakes represented here include rattlesnakes, lanceheads, and Asian pit vipers. The type genus for this subfamily is Crotalus, of which the type species is the timber rattlesnake, C. horridus.
Garter snake is a common name for the nearly harmless, small to medium-sized snakes belonging to the genus Thamnophis. Endemic to North America, species in the genus Thamnophis can be found from the subarctic plains of Canada to Central America. The common garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis, is the state reptile of Massachusetts.
Simalia boeleni is a species of python, a nonvenomous snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is endemic to the mountains of New Guinea. No subspecies are currently recognized.
The Loreto Province is one of the eight provinces in the Loreto Region of Peru. The capital of the province is the historic town of Nauta. This biologically and culturally diverse region includes the Pacaya–Samiria National Reservation, and is also home to many indigenous peoples,, as well as peasants (ribereños) who live off the land and aquatically rich rivers.
The amethystine python, also known as the scrub python or sanca permata locally, is a species of nonvenomous snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is found in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Australia. Popular among reptile enthusiasts, and noted for its coloration and size, it is one of the six largest snakes in the world, as measured either by length or weight, and is the largest native snake in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Nauta salamander or Nauta mushroomtongue salamander is a species of salamander in the family Plethodontidae. It is found on the eastern and lower slopes of the Andes from Venezuela and Colombia through Ecuador and Peru to Bolivia and east into adjacent Brazil. Its common name refers to its type locality, Nauta, in the Loreto Province, Peruvian Amazon. It might a composite of several species.
Simalia is a genus of snakes in the family Pythonidae.
The Pythonoidea, also known as pythonoid snakes, are a superfamily of snakes that contains pythons and other closely related python-like snakes. As of 2018, Pythonoidea contains 43 species, including the eponymous genus Python and 7 other genera of pythons, all in the family Pythonidae, as well as two lesser-known families, Loxocemidae and Xenopeltidae.
Pacaya–Samiria National Reserve, is a protected area located in the region of Loreto, Peru and spans an area of 20,800 km2 (8,000 sq mi). It protects an area of low hills and seasonally flooded forest in the Amazon rainforest.
Dieuwke IJtje Willemke de Graaff-Nauta was a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and teacher.
Simalia tracyae, the Halmahera python, is a species of python found only on the Indonesian island of Halmahera. It belongs to the family Pythonidae and the genus Simalia. This snake was previously believed to have belonged to the Simalia amesthistina species; however, studies in recent years have caused scientists to distinguish between the two types of snakes, resulting in the reclassification of the Halmahera python as its own species.
Simalia clastolepis, also known as the Mollucan python or Yellow python, is a species of python found in Indonesia. They can grow to be 8–9 feet in length.
James Roy Kinghorn, generally known as Roy, or J. R. Kinghorn, was an Australian naturalist, a longtime curator at the Australian Museum, and a noted lecturer and broadcaster.
The Australian scrub python is a species of snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is indigenous to forests of northern Australia. It is one of the world's longest and largest snakes, and is the longest and largest in Australia. Recently, it has been reclassified to the genus Simalia along side a few other former Morelia species, but there is still a bit of scientific debate over this.
Isaac Nauta is an American football tight end for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Georgia.
