How do snakes lay their eggs?
Snakes actually have two penises. They’re often called hemipenes because it was once thought that the two had to join together to form a channel down which the sperm could travel (we now know this isn’t true). Like all reptiles, snakes have a cloaca – a single opening through which they excrete, mate and lay eggs/give birth. Under normal circumstances, the penises are out of sight inside the cloaca. They are everted when the snake is about to mate, and one is inserted into the female’s cloaca (only one is used at a time). Sperm is ejected inside her, and fertilisation is thus internal. What happens next depends on the species of snake. In most, the fertilised eggs are coated in a leathery shell and laid. Most egg-layers simply lay their eggs somewhere safe and leave them to develop and hatch by themselves, but pythons brood their eggs, coiling around them and twitching their muscles to generate heat. King cobras build a nest out of leaves and sticks, which they guard until a few days b
