Random Q about snakes in general...

[Tatelina]

I notice it much more on my murray darling and my blonde mac than anything else..

But water pythons win hands down with this... they're the true rainbow serpants.

Edited to say: just read page 2 and saw Sdaji beat me to it.

 

[thesilverbeast]

im pretty certain after rethinking about it that i was right before so ill explain what i said a bit better, it has to do with refraction of light.. which is where as light enters something of different density each wavelength (read:colour) reflects at a slightly different angle. since white light is made up of a combination of all wavelengths (colours) then when you split that up, you get the individual colours back.

the best way to describe it is by this diagram of a prism...

as the light enters the more dense glass of the prism, the light refracts at each wavelengths individual angle which because some have a small angle and some have a large angle it splits them up so you can see each colour.


The same thing would be with the snakes. the scale itself is mostly transparent or at least the surface layer is (because remember... the shed is see through!) which allows the refraction to occur, the light shines through the scale... the colours split up and we see a rainbow!



heres another pic taken by a real camera this time to show what it actually looks like...
(the light is coming from the left hand side... splits up in the prism and then you see the colours.

 

[caustichumor]

It's not just pythons.....

 

[thesilverbeast]

as per my post, i think anything with scales has the potential to do it, fish too.