Snakes

Snakes (from Old English snaca, and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European base snag- or sneg-, “to crawl”), also known as ophidians, are cold blooded legless reptiles closely related to lizards, which share the order Squamata. There are also several species of legless lizard which superficially resemble snakes, but are not otherwise related to them. A love of snakes is called ophiophilia, a fear of snakes is called ophidiophobia (or snakephobia). A specialist in snakes is an ophiologist.

An old synonym for snake is serpent (which comes from Old French, and ultimately from *serp-, “to creep”); in modern usage this usually refers to a mythic or symbolic snake, and information about such creatures will be found under serpent (symbolism).