ANIMALS Why Doesn’t Ireland Have Snakes?
GREEN SNAKE Care_SMC, via Flickr/CC BY ND 2.0 Legend has it that, back in the fifth century A.D., St. Patrick exterminated Ireland’s snakes by driving them into the sea. He would appear to have done a thorough job, because Ireland is free of native snakes to this day. Except, Ireland never actually had snakes. Everything you’ve been told about St. Patrick's Day is a lie. (Ok, probably not all of it.) So, if snakes can be found almost everywhere else the world, from Australia to the Arctic Circle, what makes Ireland so special? WHERE SNAKES LIVE Wikimedia Commons For one, it’s an island. The Irish Sea is 50-plus miles wide. That would be a long swim for a land animal. A sea snake might have an easier time of it, but sea snakes live in warm tropical waters, not the frigid Atlantic. But, you may be thinking, the U.K. has snakes , and it’s an island. That’s true. But for a long time, neither Britain nor Ireland was home to snakes. The Ice Age ...