snakes being born alive????

This is an old wives tale--as is the "sheltering" the baby snakes in mama's mouth.

Once a snake starts to swallow, the object goes d-o-w-n--and snakes eat snakes.

Welcome to A2K.

Thanks for the quick response, it figures, me being an old wife, I'd be taken in...but darn it, it had some WONDERFUL "philosophical" implications, lol...

Re: snakes being born alive????
Noddy is right. And you are correct in assuming that snakes, like all other vertebrates are born through relatively familiar reproductive systems.

However, just to confuse the issue... ... there are certain frogs and fish which collect their young in their mouths for protection, a habit which makes it appear that they are birthing from their mouths. I believe there is even one species of from which actually swallows the young and stores them in the stomach. I'll have to see if I can find this.

Best Regards,

Gastric Brooding Frog:
http://www.towson.edu/~forester/Herpetology.html

Thanks, cool pic and I think maybe it was the fish that I heard of...

Yeh, lots of fish do this, and seahorses do it as well. Alligators also do it. The the frog is the only one I know of which actually uses the stomach, instead of the mouth.

Take care, and welcome to A2K

shunammite: What do you mean by "philosophical implications"?

Reptiles, birds, and two mammals—echidna and platypus—have a single external opening, the cloaca, into which the reproductive, urinary, and digestive tracts converge.

All reptiles except some snakes and lizards lay eggs. Most snakes and lizards lay eggs, but some bear live young by retaining the eggs within the body until the young are ready to hatch. Also some snakes and lizards have placentas through which the fetuses are nourished internally.

Hello Coluber, thank you so much for asking, I really need to spill some beans somewhere this morning....do you know the William Cowper poem The Colubriad? (I will come back and post a link if I can find it online, probably can.)

Here is the link to the poem, I found it first in a book about cats, lol:

http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/colubria.htm

A slightly humorous little story about an encounter between some kittens and a snake in the Garden...and the Poet chops the snake's head off with a hoe...and so I know that your name has something to do with snakes...I have smatterings of knowlede in so many directions but not having an easy time focusing anything.

I noticed in one of the forums, a thread, "God is a snake"...I can back that up with the bible...the very source which seems to mandate hating snakes...Neils Bohr, the opposite of a simple truth is a lie but the opposite of a profound truth may well be (and I assure Mr. Bohr it IS)..another profound truth...and so quite legitimately, earnest people despise one another in the name of Truth...and both are "right"...and both are WRONG...contempt is always "wrong"...but God help me, I can't escape it.

My thinking grows out of trying to find peace regarding my oldest son's mental problems...like Cowper (well possibly)...and Bunyan...and Luther...he has "ocd"...with a "spiritual bent"...Scrupulosity...the "fear of death" taken to Infinity...

Fear of death is bondage to "the devil" says the bible, Heb 2:14-15...I know, that's not what they say in church all they ever talk about there is "what about when you die"...and not to inspire confidence either...

A little "fear of death" is surely necessarily, otherwise we'd never make it past childhood, the fact is we are vulnerable...and there is no point fearing what is inevitable...but there IS a point to FIGHTING what is ABHORRENT...and death...is abhorrent to me...no matter how inevitable it is...and also "vanity"...that sense of worthlessness/meaninglessness...I hate that too...

My husband is very fundamentally religious also and our son's illness has only made him more fervent....very hard for me to understand....but I am learning, great as Logic and Reason are, there is a point where they are no longer useful...and the "irrationality" of other people ought to be respected...

I guess the specific verse I was thinking of is "my Word, that has gone out of My Mouth will not return unto me void but will accomplish the purpose whereunto I have sent it"...

Christ is the Word you know..."made flesh"...John 1...and also a SNAKE...as Moses lifted up the Snake in the Wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up...and also, "mine own familiar friend hath lifted up his heel against me", in the Eden story the Heel of the Seed of the Woman crushes the Head of the Seed of the Serpent...and yet that quote from psalms is understood to speak of Christ...perhaps he crushes his own head...that's the only way to "make sense" out of it...and that idea also is all over the bible..and personal experience...we destroy ourselves, but truly we don't understand what we are doing, we wanted to live...and love.

I think the "philosophical" symbol of a snake...is the utterly "not uprightness" of it...totally PROSTRATE...so opposite to Man who is Upright..."God" is all about "rightness"..."righteousness"...shall not the Judge of all the Earth do RIGHT?...Upright...but I am sure "he" encompasses the two extremities, utter selfabnegation, that hides and insinuates (<--see the "snake" in that word?)..."surely thou art a God that hidest thyself"...and "it is the glory of God to conceal a matter"...

But also utter Expression....to the ends of the earth...nothing is hid from the heat thereof...

No point talking about it, add two opposites, even opposite infinities, you come back to "zero"...and in my gut I know we don't all add up to zero, I don't care if "vanity vanity all is vanity"...

PS Coluber, thanks so much for the additional information...the blurring between the coldblooded and warmblooded species...so interesting...a little discouraged at this point that I can ever know enough to "walk by faith", lolol...what I want is to walk by sight, but that is failing too.

One more ps to Noddy, I went looking for an avatar and almost took yours, lol...so glad I found another one...it would be fun to explain why each person chose the avatar they did...

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23062

And there is the "god is a snake" thread and COLUBER I SEE IT IS YOURS!!!!

My youngest son had a baseball coach who was an insurance salesman, but also CRAZY ABOUT SNAKES, ever since he was a boy...he used to bring a couple in their cages to the games...I'm going to have to get back in touch with him and probe his mind...

Like most people who know a lot, he won't say much...

*thinks of Jeremy in the old Beatles cartoon (Yellow Submarine, Nowhere Man song)...*

shunammite, perhaps this photo will help...

Thanks for the picture...but you know, I can't quite tell what is going on...

It looks like a dinosaur...eating another dinosaur?

Those are both reptiles? So I guess it's like a snake eating a snake?

The bible idea is dogs eating dogs. Or people who lack consuming the wealth of others to get their needs met...rather than going to the source...or becoming a source of wealth to others...to steal is human, to give is divine.

shuna, the last time gus said anything serious, no one believed him.

Thanks for the tip...I am pretty new here...but it doesn't matter, I try not to put anyone in a permanent pigeonhole..and besides even when people are joking, they are communicating...people as isolated as I am will take what they can get...crumbs from the table even, better than no food at all.

Nothing against Gus, he's hilarious.

Maybe gus should have found a picture of an ouroboros....not like gus ever bores us.

Humor is a cool technique for coping with "irreconcileable differences", I wish they'd try it in the Middle East...

Or also when you don't know what the hey someone is saying, try a joke...noble to me, really...keeps the communication going...cold silence tends to atrophy compassion what the world needs now is compassion sweet compassion...or if not that, a little more information...

I used to make jokes, once upon a time...

*looks back wistfully*

It takes a lot of common ground...same "tongue"...before jokes are understood...

So an Israeli and a Palestinian walk into a bar and order the same thing, the Abraham martini, a non-alcoholic cocktail made from passionfruit juice, and a touch of a rare spice only known as Hagar the Horrible. They get to talking. The Palestinian says to the Israeli "I see we do have something in common. We both love fruits." The Israeli says "True, but we Israelis get more Bush."

I have no idea how that actually works...but it's funny to me. I hope nobody is offended, as that was not my intent.

Nothing is funny to me at the moment...I don't stay this low all the time...

I will dissect your joke though, with what I know...

I don't quite get it, they both love fruits, that would be calling them both um "queer"? And one gets more bush...hmmmm well pretty hard to "make sense" out of it...one side female queer and the other male??? Yes I know the President and all, but I still can't fit it all together...

But the one thing I DID get out of it....never thought about it before....Hagar the Horrible in connection with the biblical Hagar...she was female you know...but the mother of enmity you might say...Eve the mother of all living...Sarah I suppose the mother of all who believe if Abraham was the father of such...

The comic strip character, pretty good natured but he's a Viking...just Mr. Destruction except pretty clueless and cuddly and henpecked at home.

Hagar...symbol of Bondage, obligation, SINAI...how ironic is THAT, equated with Jerusalem in Gal 4:25!!! And her son, Ishmael, he works out to "his hand against every man"...every person fighting for his own vision, no group identity...Isaac/Israel, the group welfare is all, Ishmael, the individual is all...

You have to throw out Hagar and Ishmael to "inherit the promise"...the Isaac...laying down your life, in the end, that's where it's at.....but not too quickly, not too cheaply...have to figure out where to spend your little limited Self...the Promise is Jerusalem above, "freedom"...lotsa luck with that....

I threw way too many layers into that joke...I feel like Dennis Miller on a bad night.