Snake - Molting - Britannica

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• Introduction & Top Questions
• Snakes and humans
• Natural history
  • Dormant periods
  • Interactions between individuals
  • Reproduction
    • Mating
    • Egg formation and laying
  • Early development and growth
  • Molt
  • Locomotion
• Form and function
  • Vertebrae
  • The skin
  • Coloration
  • Skull and sense organs
  • Urogenital system
  • Specializations for securing food

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• How fast do snakes grow?
• What is molting in snakes?

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External Websites

• National Geographic Kids - Awesome 8: Super Snakes
• San Diego Zoo Animals and Plants - Snake
• BMC - BMC Ecology and Evolution - The origin of snakes: revealing the ecology, behavior, and evolutionary history of early snakes using genomics, phenomics, and the fossil record
• The Humane Society of the United States - What to do about snakes
• A-Z Animals - Snake
• Animal Corner - Snakes
• Live Science - Snakes: Facts about one of the most iconic creatures in animal hiss-tory

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Molt

in snake in Natural history Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Serpentes, serpent Written by Van Wallach Curatorial Assistant, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. Coauthor of Snakes of the World. Van WallachAll Fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors Last updated Feb. 3, 2026 •History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

A regularly recurrent event during the activity period of all snakes is the shedding, or molting, of the skin. Dormant individuals do not shed, but quite often this is one of the first events to take place after the end of dormancy. The integument of all animals represents the primary buffer between internal structures and the environment, and it is constantly subject to wear, tear, and other damage. The first line of defense against damage, especially when the skin is completely broken, is the formation of a blood clot or a scab, cellular reorganization, and scar formation. The second line of defense is the constant production of new cells in the deeper layers of the skin to replace cells lost or worn away from the surface. In snakes, the replacement procedure has been modified to a considerable degree. The replacement cells are not constantly produced independently of one another but grow on the same cycle and cohere into a complete unit. When this unit is functional, the old skin lying external to it becomes a threat to continued good health. At this point, the snake’s eyes become a milky blue, an indication of a physiological loosening of the skin that forms the eye cap. This loosening is duplicated all over the body, although not so obviously. Shortly, the eyes clear, and the snake rubs loose the skin around the mouth and nose and crawls out of it completely, leaving a new, functional skin resplendent in fresh, bright colours. The rattlesnake sheds its skin in the same fashion as all other snakes, but the process is highly modified at the tail tip, where successive layers of keratinized, hardened epidermis are interlocked, or nested, to form the rattle, a device used to ward off large mammals. The use of the rattle is reasonably successful with buffalo, cattle, or horses but spectacularly unsuccessful with humans because, through this advertising, the rattling snake precipitates either its death or its capture but seldom its escape.

News •

Watch: Snake at train station scares Sydney commuters • Feb. 2, 2026, 12:10 AM ET (BBC) ...(Show more) Snake rescues in Telangana increase five fold in 10 years; nearly 50% of snakes rescued in 2025 are spectacled cobras • Jan. 18, 2026, 7:19 PM ET (The Hindu) Show less