Ophiophagy (Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of ὄφις + φαγία "snake eating") is a specialized form of feeding Eating is the process of ingesting food to provide for an animal's nutritional needs, particularly for energy and growth. All animals must eat organisms in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, and omnivores consume a mixture of both or alimentary behavior Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary of animals which hunt In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey, (the organism that is attacked). Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results and not to the benefit of the prey. The other main category of consumption is detritivory, the consumption of dead and eat snakes Snakes are elongate legless carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with many more joints than their lizard ancestors,. There are ophiophagous mammals Mammals are a class of vertebrate, air-breathing animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair and/or fur, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain (such as the skunks Skunks are mammals best known for their ability to secrete a liquid with a strong, foul-smelling odor. General appearance ranges from species to species, from black-and-white to brown or cream colored. Skunks belong to the family Mephitidae and to the order Carnivora. There are 10 species of skunks, which are divided into four genera: Mephitis , and the mongooses Mongooses are a family of about 30 species of small carnivorans from southern Eurasia and mainland Africa. Four additional species from Madagascar in the subfamily Galidiinae, which were previously classified in this family, are also frequently referred to as "mongooses". Genetic evidence indicates that they are more closely related to), birds Birds are winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 3 m (10 ft) Ostrich (such as snake eagles, the Secretary Bird The Secretarybird or Secretary Bird is a large, mostly terrestrial bird of prey. Endemic to Africa, it is usually found in the open grasslands and savannah of the sub-Sahara. Although a member of the order Accipitriformes, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as kites, buzzards, vultures, and harriers, it is given its own family,, and some hawks The common names of birds in various parts of the world often use hawk in the second sense. For example, the Osprey or "fish hawk"; or, in North America, the various Buteo species), lizards Lizards are a very large and widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3,800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains. The group, traditionally recognized as the suborder Lacertilia, is defined as all extant members of the Lepidosauria which are neither sphenodonts (i.e., Tuatara) nor (such as the Common collared lizard), and even other snakes, such as the Central and South American mussuranas and the North American Common Kingsnake. The genus of the venomous King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is named for this habit.
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