why do snakes have 2 penises?
344675
Courtship, mating and reproduction : Like all snakes and lizards, male sea snakes have two penises. They are called hemipenes, but each is an autonomous independently functioning penis and only one is used during mating. Mating takes place for long periods and sea snakes must surface for air during that time. The female controls breathing and as she swims to the surface the male is pulled along attached via the hemipenis. At the surface the male needs to gulp for air or he has to wait til the next time the female comes up the the surface to breathe. Males are unable to disengage until mating is finished. \n\nIn species where courtship has been studied, eg olive and turtlehead sea snakes, one or more males follow the female very closely and occasionally prod the head and neck of females. \n\nAll sea snakes except the latidcaudids give birth to live young after gestation periods that range from four to eleven months, depending on the species. Most species reproduce every year. The timing of the reproductive cycle varies enomously between species and also differs between geographical locations for the same species. \n\nYoung are born underwater and must be independent immediately to swim to the surface to breathe. There is no parental care. In some species look quite different to the adults eg juvenile olive sea snake are strongly banded while the adults are not.
996352
Does a snake have legs?
803314
Because one of its legs is both the same.
341276
One.\n\nPraying Mantis' have two, one in the head and one in their tail.\n\nHomework question?
431352
Snakes lost their legs on land, not in the sea as previous scientists thought, according to new research by professor of biology S. Blair Hedges and postdoctoral fellow Nicolas Vidal.\n\n"Everyone agrees that snakes evolved from lizards and are close relatives to lizards," Hedges said. "What is controversial is the specific group, whether on the land or in the sea."\n\nScientists estimate that snakes evolved 150 million years ago, Vidal said. For many years, they believed in the terrestrial or land theory, which says that snakes evolved from lizards that burrowed underground.\n\nThen, seven years ago, the discovery of a fossilized marine snake with tiny hind legs fueled the marine hypothesis that snakes lost their legs in the sea. The marine snakes called mosasaurs are now extinct, but their closest cousins, the monitor lizards such as the Komodo Dragon, are still alive today.\n\nHedges and Vidal chose two genes and compared them in lizards and snakes to see how closely they are related. From statistical analysis of these gene sequences, they created a family tree.\n\n"These two genes have accumulated different mutations in the different species," Vidal said. "These differences between the species are used to build the evolutionary trees. Snakes are not closely related to the monitor lizards, which means that they cannot have marine origins."\n\nHedges and Vidal's research is significant because of the comprehensive scope of the snakes and lizards studied. They collected DNA from 64 species representing all 19 families of living lizards and 17 of the 25 families of living snakes, Vidal said.\n\n"We mostly acquired DNA from the soft tissues, blood, shed skin, scales and tips of the tails of the animals," he said. "A very small amount is needed, so we can get the sample without killing the animal."\n\nHedges and Vidal acquired samples from other colleagues, their own collections, fieldwork in South America and pet stores that trade exotic animals, Hedges said.\n\nSome of the samples were difficult to acquire because some snakes and lizards are limited to certain parts of the world, such as remote islands, but it was crucial to their study.\n\n"We felt it was important to analyze genes from all the lizard groups, because almost every lizard family has been suggested as being the one most closely related to snakes," Hedges said. "If we had failed to include genes from even one of the lizard families, we could have missed getting the right answer."\n\nA possible theory to explain why snakes dropped their legs on land is that limbs are not conducive to their burrowing habits, Vidal said.\n\n"The idea is that if you have limbs sticking out, it's difficult to get into small openings," Hedges said. "It's more advantageous, because it enables snakes to get more food and offers safety from predators."\n\nHedges and Vidal did not find the closest lizard relative to snakes, but they did succeed in eliminating the monitor and marine lizards as possibilities.\n\n"This study doesn't answer all the questions," Hedges said. "In most fields, questions aren't answered all at once. They're answered in increments, and in this study, we've ruled out the marine theory, but that still leaves a lot of possibilities."\n\nHedges and Vidal said they hope to find the closest relative to snakes in the next year.\n\n"The work by Dr. Hedges and Dr. Vidal is a tremendous contribution to the body of knowledge," said Bryan Fry, deputy director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne in Australia. "Their data provides strong evidence for the terrestrial loss of limbs."
651370
The part responsible for this is a long mass inside the penis, it looks rather like a sponge, with lots of space inside. These little caves can fill with blood and as a result, the penis thickens, grows in length and all the rest of it.
240081
There are many reasons for this, but most are Christian seeing as magic users are thought to be in league with the devil and the serpent also represents the devil. Another one is that in Asia Minor, snakes are associated with prophecy, which most cultures would take to be something dealing with magic or wizards and witches.
222438
This is a very interesting question!  Many famous evolutionary biologists have had cracks at answering similar questions.  The basic idea is that over the course of evolution - from ancient fish to ancient amphibians to ancient tetrapods - there were constraints in the development of the body plans to make a pelvis for holding the hindlimbs and a shoulder girdle for holding the forelimbs.  For physical reasons these two morphological features have not evolved in other locations along the body, because of this, tetrapods have only four legs.
1107422
Is this a riddle? \nYou gave virtually no information about the animal, only that it has a tail and can climb trees.\n\nIt could be a lizard, snake, monkey...\n\nAre you thinking of the double-snake wrapped around a staff? This is the symbol of medicine, the caudecus.
449512
lookin at your avatar & reading this question is far to sweet & innocent...hermaphrodites are human like you & I except hermaphrodites have both a vagina & a penis...some may tend to lean on one gender more than the other i.e.choosing to be more female than male(dress & look like female)...or the other way around.Hermaphrodites go through tough trials & tribulations in life in/out of family relationships due to having both sex organs...sometimes leaving them abused/molested as children many times by family members & what not.
1071434
A penis with lips? What the...
608207
yes all snakes have teeth, they need them to hold on to food as they swallow them... WHOLE. \nSnakes have many more teeth than found in mammals. Many snake species have over 200 teeth, which can be found in two rows along the top and bottom of its mouth. Unlike mammals, the teeth are attached to the side of the jawbone. Snakes cannot use their teeth to chew pray since they are all pointing backwards. This is to help the snake swallow and hold it's prey. If one of it's teeth comes out or gets broken it is quickly replaced by another tooth (this is much like sharks teeth). Also snakes usually shed their teeth to always make sure that they are sharp. All of the snake's teeth are the same length and size except the elongated teeth of Boas and Pythons and the Venomous snakes. that's probably why your friend said that.
663118
Because they are gay. They like to play hide and seek with the brown snake. They like to anally invade ach other. They like to play put the meat in the fridge. They put it in the oven.
599327
penis's are made out of different kind of skin as our bodies and the penis is NOT a muscle
454548
Snakes have scales because of the way they evolved. Lacking legs like most reptiles, they have to slide their bodies across surfaces and fur/bare skin would make that extremely difficult because it would produce too much friction, would be a pain for the snake to keep clean, and would provide too much cushion between the snakes muscles (which it uses to propel itself along the ground) and the surface it is crawling on. A furry snake probably couldn't move. \n\nMost scales are smooth and slick, allowing the snake to push itself along effortlessly, and also provide protection since it's like armor in a sense.\n\nSnakes have evolved different textures of scales, too, to help them survive in different environments and to catch whatever they like to eat. That explains why some snakes are smooth (land snakes that catch mice and such) and others are rough and sand-papery (seasnakes who have to grip slippery fish).
5744
All mammals have genitals like our own. Birds and reptiles have cloacas, which act as openings for the entire excretory and sexual systems.
898107
The reticulated python can reach 33 feet and weigh several hundred pounds, perhaps 400 pounds or more. They can eat a full-grown man and there have been confirmed reports of them eating an adult man in Asia, they are man-eaters. Though pythons rarely eat humans, it has happened. An adult man is not too large for a 30 foot snake to swallow. Some exceptionally large constrictor snakes can eat things twice the average adult man's size.\n\nNo, people should not exterminate all pythons. They play a vital role in the ecosystem. They are living things that have a desire to live. People just need to avoid areas a python could be hiding and exercise some common sense not to be eaten like staying together with a bunch of people and not venturing off somewhere alone where there have been massive snake sightings reported in the past.