Seven-year-old Uorn Sambath, who lives in the Cambodian village of Setbo, spends time with the family pet. The reptile, named Chamroeun, slithered into the house as a younger — and much smaller — snake when Uorn was a baby. Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses; exceptions include some large islands, such as Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and the islands of New Zealand, and many small islands of the Atlantic and central Pacific. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans. More than 20 families are currently recognized, comprising about 500 genera and about 3,400 species.They range in size from the tiny, 10 cm-long thread snake to the reticulated python of up to 6.95 meters (22.8 ft) in length. The fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 13 meters (43 ft) long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago.[8] The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene period (c 66 to 56 Ma ago). The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus. Most species are nonvenomous and those that have venom use it primarily to k!ll and subdue prey rather than for self-defense. Some possess venom potent enough to cause painful !njury or death to humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow prey alive or k!ll by constriction.
While there is a seemingly endless number
of companies issuing auto insurance policies
these days, there are really just two ways to
buy car insurance: You can purchase a
policy in-person through an agent -- a
licensed individual who sells policies on
behalf of one or more insurance companies
-- or you can buy directly from an insurer via
Web site or telephone.Buying car insurance
online still accounts for a relatively small
portion of total auto insurance sales, but it's
increasing in popularity. According to a 2011
survey by the Internet marketing research
company ComScore, just 20 percent of new
auto insurance policies were purchased
online, compared to 43 percent purchased
from an agent. However, the number of
online purchases represents an increase of 5
percent from just two years earlier, while the
number of agent purchases represents a 6
percent decline. Additionally, a 2011 survey
by J.D. Power and Associates showed that
54 percent of new auto insurance owners
applied for a rate quote online, the first time
this has happened for a majority of
respondents [source: Insurance Information
Institute].
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