ABSTRACT
Reproductive biology is a central part of many studies of snakes. From a historical perspective, studies by earlier scientists who have contributed to our present knowledge are worth examination. At the same time much of our understanding of the reproductive biology of snakes comes from studies of other reptiles or even other vertebrates. Observations of reproductive behavior or breeding results have been mentioned in much of the older literature, although the observer was not always aware of what occurred. For example, reports of snake balls have been occurring in literature for several hundred years, and this phenomenon of mating aggregations has been well known to farmers and other field people without actually knowing what was happening.
