Beauty of Snakes

They are among the most hated and feared animals on the planet - only few people recognize their beauty. This documentary features some of Europe's most stunning species, like the European adder, the nose-horned viper, the dice snake, the ringed snake and the Aesculapian snake. So watch out next time you're walking in the park. After a winter safe in burrows, sometimes in bundles of hundreds, the spring's warmth brings them back to life. Awards: China International Animal and Nature Film Festival 2017: Best Photography Award

They are among the most hated und feared animals on the planet – only few people recognize their beauty. This documentary features some of Europe’s most stunning species, like the European adder, the nose-horned viper, the dice snake, the ringed snake and the Aesculapian snake. After a winter safe in burrows, sometimes in bundles of hundreds, the spring’s warmth brings them back to life. Adders at 2,000 metres in the Alps have extra survival skills: they are almost pitch-black to absorb every last ray from the sun, and their offspring are born alive – it would be too cold for eggs. Storks and herons, martens and polecats predate their lower altitude cousins. Most snakes avoid humans. The Aesculapian snake likes to shimmy up trees to catch birds, but it’s happiest where humans store grain or dump waste – that attracts lots of mice. And Europe has its own constrictor! So watch out next time you’re walking in the park…

125 million years ago on the floodplains of North America, a burrowing lizard started down the long evolutionary path of shedding its limbs. The 60-plus species of snakes found in Sean P. Graham’s American Snakes have this ancestral journey to thank for their ubiquity, diversity, and beauty.