Pelvic girdle in the context of "Human skeleton"

Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors and relatives, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most only have one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae).

Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses; exceptions include some large islands, such as Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and the islands of New Zealand, as well as many small islands of the Atlantic and central Pacific oceans. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans. Around thirty families are currently recognized, comprising about 520 genera and about more than 4,170 species. They range in size from the tiny, 10.4 cm-long (4.1 in) Barbados threadsnake to the reticulated python of 6.95 meters (22.8 ft) in length. The fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was 12.8 meters (42 ft) long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago. The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene epoch (c. 66 to 56 Ma ago, after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event). The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus.

The appendicular skeleton is the portion of the vertebrate endoskeleton consisting of the bones, cartilages and ligaments that support the paired appendages (fins, flippers or limbs). In most terrestrial vertebrates (except snakes, legless lizards and caecillians), the appendicular skeleton and the associated skeletal muscles are the predominant locomotive structures.

There are 126 bones in the human appendicular skeleton, includes the skeletal elements within the shoulder and pelvic girdles, upper and lower limbs, and hands and feet. These bones have shared ancestry (are homologous) to those in the forelimbs and hindlimbs of all other tetrapods, which are in turn homologous to the pectoral and pelvic fins in fish.

Myomeres are blocks of skeletal muscle tissue arranged in sequence, commonly found in aquatic chordates. Myomeres are separated from adjacent myomeres by fascia consisting of connective tissue, known as myosepta. Myomere counts are sometimes used for identifying specimens using meristics, since their number corresponds to the number of vertebrae in the adults. Myomere location varies, with some species containing these only near the tails, while some have them located near the scapular or pelvic girdles. Depending on the species, myomeres could be arranged in an epaxial or hypaxial manner; hypaxial refers to ventral muscles (those of the "stomach" region) and related structures, while epaxial refers to more dorsal muscles (those of the "back"). The horizontal septum divides these two regions in vertebrates from cyclostomes (jawless lamprey and hagfish) to gnathostomes (jawed fish). In terrestrial chordates, which are gnathostomes themselves, the myomeres become fused as well as indistinct, due to the disappearance of myosepta.