Why Do Snakes Shed Their Skin? 🐍

Morning skin shedders!

Look at this crazy video of a snake shedding its skin:

Super weird…

What the heck is happening here?

Cause It's not just snakes that do this.

Other reptiles like geckos and various lizards do it too.

Also, insects like cicadas, dragonflies and spiders.

So, why do all of these animals do this weird skin shedding thing??

There's actually a clue in *when* they do it that helps explain why.

A snake sheds its skin somewhere between 20 and 40 skin times in its entire snake life.

But here's the thing…

The majority of those would take place when our snakey friend was a little baby snek…

I.e. when he was growing.

As baby snakes shed their skin every 2 ish weeks.

Whereas old person snakes only really shed a couple times a year… if that.

But wait. 

We also grow, so why don't we shed our skins too?

Well, we DO!

Just not our entire skin all at once. That’d be horrific.

Sorry about that…

But yeah, as our bodies grow, we grow new skin and we shed little bits of old skin.

This is because our skin is kinda stretchy.

So it stretches as we grow and just slowly flakes off in little tiny pieces.

Unlike us, snakes can't really do this because their scaly skin doesn't stretch too much.

Meaning, as a snake gets bigger and bigger, its old skin starts getting a little tight. 

Think, wearing clothes that are a few sizes too small.

So now you’ve got your old skin wrapped tight around you and your new skin growing underneath.

Once the new skin is finished growing, the snake will find something rough, like a rock, and rub it…

Until the old skin breaks open.

Then it simply… wriggles out!

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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