Snakes
The snake’s skin is covered with tough and protective scales, which can be rhomboid or oval in shape. The skin is smooth and slippery due to a secretion that facilitates the snake’s movement. It is also very flexible, allowing the snake to move and adapt to different shapes.
Vegetarian snakes are not found
These animals live considerably shorter lives in the wild than in confined conditions. In breeding, such individuals can live up to 50 years. In the wild, the difference is due to the fact that the animals are cared for 24 hours a day and are not exposed to predators or parasites.
The longest snakes in the world can be up to eight metres long. The record holder here is the reticulated python. The heaviest, on the other hand, is the green anaconda. In contrast, the smallest snake species can be as short as 15 cm.
Some snakes go through a period of hibernation, also known as winter sleep. During hibernation, their metabolism slows down and their body temperature decreases, allowing them to conserve energy and survive the harsh winter conditions.
Among all snakes, 15 per cent are venomous snakes
Contrary to what is said, snakes do not shed their skin, but their epidermis.And the only continent where there are no weevils is the Antarctica
They do not have the ability to chew, they swallow their prey whole.
Lizards
Lizards are characterised by a strongly elongated body. They may have four legs or no legs at all, in which case they are legless lizards, of which the common scavenger is an example.
The most common defence system among lizards is autotomy, or the rejection of the tail. Later, the tail grows back in the lizard, but is no longer as long as the original tail.
Not all lizards discard their tail when they feel threatened. Exceptions are, for example, varans, agamas, chameleons, heloderms and some iguanas.
Most lizards are oviparous. Some species are oviparous, such as our Polish viviparous lizard or the malachite iguana
Lizards sense odours in a similar way to snakes – that is, using their tongue and receptors located in the upper part of their mouth.
There are lizards whose defence mechanism is to gush blood from their eyes. An example is the horned frynosoma, found in North America.
The scales of lizards are made up of keratin. This is exactly the same substance found in our fingernails and hair.Unlike amphibians, reptiles do not breathe through their skin. Their only organs for carrying out gas exchange are the lungs and the mouth.
Spiders
To locate prey, some spiders use environmental vibrations.
This is popular especially among web-weaving spiders. Some species can also locate prey by detecting changes in air pressure.
They do not have feelers; their role has been taken over by legs.
The cuticle covering them has the ability to detect sounds, odours, vibrations and air movements.
Their circulatory system is open.
This means that they have no veins, but the haemolymph (which functions as blood) is forced through arteries into the body cavities (haemocells) surrounding the internal organs. There, gas and nutrient exchange takes place between the haemolymph and the organ. Spiders are predators.
Most feed only on flesh food, although there are species (Bagheera kiplingi) whose diet consists of 90% plant matter. The young of some spider species feed on plant nectar. There are also scavenger spiders, feeding mainly on dead arthropods.
All spiders are venomous
Spiders are not capable of biting their prey.
In most, the mouth apparatus is equipped with a straw-like device that allows them to drink the dissolved tissues of their prey.
The vast majority of spiders reproduce sexually. Semen is not introduced into the female’s body via the genitalia, but is stored in special containers located on the legs.
Only after these containers are filled with sperm does the male go in search of a mate. During copulation, they are introduced into the external genitalia of the female called the epigynum, where fertilisation takes place. This process was observed as early as 1678 by Martin Lister, an English physician and naturalist.
Female spiders are capable of laying up to 3,000 eggs.
These are often kept in silk cocoons to keep them moist. The spider larvae undergo metamorphosis while still in the cocoons and leave them when they reach mature body size.
In a significant number of spiders there is cannibalism associated with the act of reproduction.
Most often it is the male that falls prey to the female – usually during or after copulation. Cases where the male eats the female are extremely rare. There are species among which even ⅔ of the cases involve the male being eaten by the female. In contrast, the roles are reversed among aquatic spiders (Argyronetia aquatica), where males often eat females that are smaller than themselves, while copulating with larger females. In the spiders Allocosa brasiliensis, males eat older females whose reproductive abilities are no longer as good as those of younger females.