Word: greenees
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To Greene, the greatest achievement of the snake is how well it has adapted to its varied environments. Like sharks, which have a similar image problem, snakes occupy almost every available ecological niche except the polar regions, from rain forests to deserts to the sea. Probably descended from nearly limbless...
Males have paired sex organs--each called a hemipenis, or half penis--hidden in the base of the tail. Some species, such as common king snakes, deploy these alternatively in successive matings--perhaps, says Greene, to allow more frequent copulation. When Borneo's yellow-lipped sea- kraits breed, as many...
The hatchlings of some species exhibit survival strategies that might seem beyond their tiny reptilian brains. Young Eastern hog-nosed snakes, for example, feign death if they sense a threat. Are they consciously aware of danger? Or, as Greene puts it, "Does a mere serpent have reflections and intentions?" To...
Most astonishing to Greene are snakes' keen senses--of smell, temperature and touch--which make up for their lack of external ears and limited vision (except for night snakes, which have catlike eyes). That flickering forked tongue, for example, loathsome as it may seem, actually gives the snake the chemical...
Greene, who wrote his book in response to a challenge from the late writer Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It)--"Look, just tell me why you work with those damned old rattlesnakes," Maclean said--makes no excuses for them. Snakes kill more than 20,000 humans a year, he...