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Pictures showing an Arabian sand boa that looks like “a child’s best effort at drawing a snake” has charmed the internet.
“Today I learned about the Arabian sand boa,” wrote the Today Years Old Twitter account. “It looks like a child’s best effort at drawing a snake.” The tweet, which included photos of the snake in question, had gained nearly 400,000 likes and over 41,000 retweets by August 30.
Almost 1,500 Twitter users responded to the post, sharing memes and jokes about the https://twitter.com/ruthwilsons/status/1561924237518061568species.
The most striking thing about the Arabian sand boa’s appearance is the positioning of its eyes on top of its head, rather than on the sides as in other snakes.
This might give the snake an unthreatening appearance—but to a small desert animal, it’s what makes the Arabian sand boa a deadly predator.
As the snake’s name suggests, Arabian sand boas live in sandy areas. This presents a useful opportunity for the snake to conceal itself underneath the sand, making it less noticeable to prey.
For an ordinary snake this would be an issue, since they would need to have a large part of their head exposed in order to see. This is not the case for the Arabian sand boa, which can bury itself almost entirely whilst keeping its eyes just above the surface of the sand, due to their positioning on the top of the head.
“Because its eyes are on top, they remain uncovered by sand and can watch out for prey items that the snake might make its next meal,” James Hanken, curator of herpetology at the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology, told Newsweek. “In effect, the unusual placement of its eyes is an adaptation associated with this habitat and behavior.”
The Arabian sand boa is unique in this respect. While there are other species of snake that have eyes positioned high up on the sides of the head, “no other one has the eyes truly displaced to the top of the head as in the Arabian sand boa,” Hanken said.
That’s not the only distinctive feature of the snake, however, as Stevie Kennedy-Gold, a curatorial associate in the Herpetology Department of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, told Newsweek.
Kennedy-Gold said the Arabian sand boa does stand out from other boa species since they are egg-layers. “Many boa species are ovoviviparous, meaning that the female produces eggs which develop inside her body until the babies are ready to be born, ultimately resulting in a live birth,” she said.
However, in common with the boa constrictor the Arabian sand boa is not venomous, instead killing its prey by biting and squeezing it.
“Their bites, although not terribly common, will be uncomfortable but not venomous,” Kennedy-Gold said. “It cannot be overstated, however, that Arabian sand boas are wild animals and should be treated with respect. If you are lucky enough to see one in the wild, try not to disturb it and instead marvel at its unique morphology!”
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