Simple method of snakes identification using their teeth
Snake fangs are specialized, elegantly modified teeth. Some are like hypodermic needles, others are more like water slides. But all serve essentially the same purpose: to inject venom into the snake's prey because of their important role in classifying snakes and understanding how different groups of snakes are related to each other.Cro ss-sections of fangs: an aglyphous tooth,an opisthoglyphous fang,a proteroglyphous fang. Aglyphous
Both boas and pythons have only aglyphous teeth, which is about
the only thing this film got right. This word is used to describe unmodified teeth, essentially non-fangs. All snakes, even those that possess fangs of the first three types, have aglyphous teeth which they use for gripping their prey as they manipulate it during swallowing. As I just mentioned, many advanced snakes that today have only aglyphous teeth probably evolved from fanged ancestors. These snakes employ other sophisticated techniques, such as constriction, which is also used by more primitive snakes like boas and pythons (which did not evolve from fanged ancestors).