How Does a Snake Shed Its Skin?

Video Transcript

"How does a snake shed its skin? Well, a snake sheds its skin in much the same way as some people take their socks off, start at the top and roll it down, and pull it off your foot. Basically what happens is about a week before they start to shed their skin, their color will get very, very dull, and very darker, and their eyes will start to turn a bluish hue as the scale on their eyes start to get ready to come off. And then a day or so before they shed, the eye scale becomes clear again, and right after that, about a day after it, they'll start to rub their nose against something hard, in the enclosure, and split that skin up on their face, and then basically, they use their environment to start rolling it down their body. Now if the shed goes properly, it all comes down in one big piece just like a sock, with the inside out, and you can see the eyes, the nostrils, every single piece of anatomy on the snake, on the outside anatomy, because there's a scale there. It's actually quite an amazing and fascinating feet. Now if the shed doesn't go very well, it comes off in patches or layers, or strips, and it can be a little bit more problematic and harder for the snake to get off. But by far the most delicate time and the most delicate thing to get off, would be what's called the eye caps, which is the two scales over the eyes. If those don't come off properly or if they get stuck on, or re-adhere, they can damage the eye permanently, and cause the snake to lose its sight."