Episode 247 – Vipers
7/5/20263 hr 16 min
Happy Snake Month!
Some of the most fascinating, famous, and dangerous snakes on the planet belong to the family Viperidae. Vipers include some of the world’s most specialized ambush hunters, and they are one of the most diverse and successful groups of snakes. This episode, we take a tour through the many visages of vipers, we explore their unique adaptations from head to tail, and we investigate the deep history that led them to their incredible modern success.
In the news: colorful crocs, pregnant mussels, tiny migration, and surprising snakes.
Time markers:
Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00
News: 00:04:45
Main discussion, Part 1: 00:40:25
Main discussion, Part 2: 01:26:15
Patron question: 03:04:40
With the help of our Patrons, we’ll be donating this year to:
Save the Snakes https://savethesnakes.org/
The Crocodile Research Coalition https://crocodileresearchcoalition.org/
The Natural Resources Defense Council https://www.nrdc.org/
Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast
Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/
Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/
Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common\_descent
The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org
Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsWill· Host0:00
You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
David· Host0:03
[upbeat music] Hello, Will.
Will· Host0:20
Hello, David.
David· Host0:21
Hello, listeners, and welcome to Common Descent, a podcast where we talk about paleontology, evolution, the history of life on Earth. And during July, we talk about snakes. This is episode 247. Our topic for this episode is vipers.
Will· Host0:37
Yeah, I'm excited.
David· Host0:39
This is a very diverse, very successful family of snakes that also includes some of the most famous and notorious snake species on the planet.
Will· Host0:50
Yeah, like, vipers are the, kind of the rock stars of snakes.
David· Host0:55
Yeah. They also... They're so cool.
Will· Host0:57
Mm-hmm.
David· Host0:58
They're so- They look cool. They've got a bunch of unique and really interesting adaptations. We'll go through it in this episode. We will talk about what makes vipers unique, how they live their lives, and how these adaptations allow them to get by with that lifestyle, and we'll go through some of the evolutionary history and diversity and relationships of these snakes, and mostly we'll just geek out about how cool these snakes are. They're so cool. I'm very excited. [laughs] We are discussing vipers because it is Snake Month, and this