Aspid - what or who? According to biblical legend, this is a terrible and poisonous serpent with horns, with white and black sand-colored spots scattered on the skin. He was represented in the imagination of people as a winged dragon with two paws and a bird's beak. On medieval tablets it was said that the Asp lives in the mountains, that he never sits on the ground, preferring only huge stones. According to legend, this monster allegedly devastated the surroundings, destroying livestock and people. And nothing can kill him, except to burn him in a blue flame. So, the asp is who it really is: the biblical serpent-tyrant or the real reptile living on our planet? Let's find out!
Who is the asp?
The word "asp" is currently not a proper name, and therefore in the middle or end of a sentence is written with a lowercase letter, not an uppercase letter. Asps are the largest family of venomous snakes, which includes more than 347 different species. All of them are combined into 61 genera, or superfamilies. By-Greek aspis - "poisonous snake." The modern classification includes in this family a whole group of sea snakes, which previously belonged to a completely different family.
The brightest representatives of this group of reptiles are:
- water cobras,
- shield cobras,
- mambas,
- kraits,
- decorated asps,
- collared cobras,
- African Pied Asps,
- king cobras,
- tree cobras,
- denisons,
- false asps,
- deadly snakes,
- tiger snakes,
- Solomon asps, etc.
Aspida family. Sizes and colors
Aspid is an amazing snake! The body length of most representatives of this family ranges from 40 centimeters to 4 meters. For example, the Arizona aspid stretches up to 60 centimeters, and the so-called black mamba - up to 3.8 meters. The coloration of the body of these snakes can be different, but often it is of two types. For example, arboreal and terrestrial species of asps (cobras, mambas, vipers) are painted predominantly in a solid gray, brown, green or sand color.
But there are species that have unclear and even vague tones. So, small and burrowing species of poisonous snakes can be painted coral or even have a bright contrasting pattern, consisting of red, yellow, black and alternating rings. By the way, this coloring directly indicates the toxicity of its owner. many kindstree frogs, similarly painted in orange-green color, pose a serious danger to predatory animals.
The structure of the poisonous tooth of asps
As mentioned above, the asp is a snake with deadly poison. All species of this family, without exception, are poisonous. The deadly substance is in their teeth. Let's find out what the legendary teeth of poisonous snakes look like - asps. To begin with, there are two of them: paired teeth are located at the front end of the maxillary bone, which has a noticeably shortened shape.
Both teeth are much larger than all the others and have a peculiar shape: they are bent back and equipped with a poison channel, from which a deadly poison is injected into the blood of the victim. It is worth noting that the poisonous teeth of all representatives of the aspid family are quite primitive, since they are located motionless in the oral cavity.
The most primitive species of these snakes have 8 to 15 small teeth in their mouths located on the upper jaw, but most of their relatives still have 3-5 teeth. It is noteworthy that in such aggressive asps as African mambas, all the upper small teeth (except for two poisonous ones) have already fallen off on their own in the process of evolution.
Asps in mythology
As mentioned above, the asp is not only a representative of the current family of poisonous snakes, but also a mythological monster described in Biblical traditions. In this case, the word "Aspid" will be used as a proper name, and therefore it will be written with a capital letter. Recall:according to legend, this serpent devastates the surroundings, taking cattle and people with it. It can only be killed with fire, as the Asp is not a burning creature.
According to the legend, Aspid can cling to the ground with one ear, and plug the other with his tail. Why does he need it? The fact is that the mythological Asp is the same snake (or dragon) as the current reptiles, so it is easy to put him into a trance through certain spells. In order not to listen to the spellcasters, he plugs his ears. In Russian folklore, the snake Aspid is compared with the Serpent Gorynych and with the terrible Basilisk. Some folklorists still identify this character with the two-meter Egyptian cobra, with which Queen Cleopatra poisoned herself.
