Veteran science journalist Stephen S. Hall–the author of several books, most recently, Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World—recounts how he approached writing Slither, a strategy seeking to beckon even those amidst the sizable contingent of people who are creeped out by snakes, hate snakes, or are afraid of snakes.
And while only time will tell the results he’s elicited, Hall’s a masterful writer–his breezy, conversational style makes reading Slither a far more winning experience than even the I-don’t-like-snakes crowd would likely have anticipated.
Plus, in a tour de force of research and reporting, Hall delivers a bracing treatise on serpents that itself slithers deftly through history, religion, literature, mythology, and plenty of science, of course, making a compelling case for reassessing our view of snakes.
Hall lards the book with startling scenes and revelations aplenty, so many, I point out, that we can’t possibly cover them all in our allotted on-air time. So, we hopscotch across many, among them two significant instances that pythons surface in Slither, including the way, Hall describes, how humongous their rare meals might be—such that not only can the snake’s body change shape, but its organs can change shape, too. Hall goes on to address the medical implications for us humans regarding such diseases as diabetes.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we also discussed the problem of pythons rife in the Everglades, a problem so monumental in scope, Hall reports, that even experts closest to the situation are unable to reliably estimate the python population there. He also recalls searching for the snakes with Donna Kalil, a veteran python hunter and colorful figure in south Florida python circles (and a “Talking Animal guest in May of 2023).
I observe that as the chapters unspool in Slither, animated by Hall’s stellar reporting and research, an unstated thesis emerges: Snakes Are Marvels. We light on a handful of examples, such as the realm of locomotion, particularly striking for Sidewinders, an engineering sensation…segueing to an experiment in which researchers wondered about the behavior of various snakes when they approached a road, and how they’d react if a pick-up truck zoomed by: every snake that crossed the road did so at a 90-degree angle…they understood the shortest distance to the other side—and took that path.
And so on. Marvels.
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