Snakes Alive! Stage 6 Comprehension Pack PDF

STAGE 6 Unit focus: Scaly Beasts Text focus: Information Text Snakes Alive! Snakes are some peoples’ worst nightmares. Whether they are dangling from branches in adventure...

STAGE 6 Unit focus: Scaly Beasts Text focus: Information Text Snakes Alive! Snakes are some peoples’ worst nightmares. Whether they are dangling from branches in adventure films or attacking people on planes, they have o en appeared as villains in films and books. While not all snakes are dangerous, let’s have a look at three behemoths that you are best to avoid. Green Anaconda At up to 30 feet long and weighing up to a colossal 500 pounds (possibly even more), the green anaconda is the largest species of snake in the world. Even though the reticulated python (a close relative) can reach longer lengths, the anaconda is much thicker and weighs significantly more. Even though they may not quite be the longest, they are longer than a bus when fully grown! There are other species of anaconda that don’t attain the mesmerising size of the green anaconda. Swamps and marshes are the primary habitats for green anacondas, mainly in the tropical rainforests of the Amazon. They aren’t the fastest on land but get them in the water, and they can outswim most species. The design of their head (eyes and nostrils on the top) means that they can lie in waiting in the water until prey wanders past. Green anacondas aren’t venomous; instead, they wrap around their prey and constrict it until it suffocates. Every time the prey breathes out, the snake wraps a little bit tighter until the animal can no longer take another breath. Using this technique, they can hunt larger prey such as deer and even jaguars. Burmese Python Like their cousins, the green anaconda, Burmese pythons prefer to live and hunt in water. However, they spend most of their early life in trees hunting birds and small mammals. It’s only as they get older that they migrate to ground level and into the water. Even though they are native to southern and southeast Asia, they can be found in Florida, where all resources ©2021 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com  they have bred as an invasive species. Most of these Floridian pythons were originally pets that escaped or were released, or they escaped from snake breeding facilities during a devastating hurricane in 1992. Burmese pythons have been known to regularly reach nearly 20 feet in length and can weigh up to 200 pounds. Titanoboa Okay, so this species is now extinct, but it is definitely worth a mention. Appearing just as the dinosaurs disappeared, Titanoboa possibly reached lengths of up to 50 feet and weighed over a ton. Given that modern boas and pythons can eat animals a quarter of their length, this means that Titanoboa may have eaten animals up to 4 metres in length! Scientists believe that it probably inhabited tropical swamps in modern-day South America, along with tortoises the size of tables and enormous crocodiles. VOCABULARY FOCUS 1. Which word describes somebody or something who is the “bad guy” in a film? 2. Which word means a “huge or monstrous creature”? 3. What does the word “colossal” tell you about the author’s opinion of the anaconda’s weight? 4. If something is “mesmerising”, what does it mean? 5. Write a definition for the word “constrict”. VIPERS QUESTIONS S Summarise how an anaconda kills its prey. R Which snake is the longest in the world? R Which snakes in the text begin their lives in one habitat and end in another? S How does the design of an anaconda’s head help it to hunt? I Why is it hard to know exact figures about Titanoboa? all resources ©2021 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com