Which continent has no native snakes?

Antarctica has no native snakes, and in fact no native land reptiles at all. Reptiles are ectotherms, relying on external heat to raise body temperature enough for muscles and digestion to work, and Antarctica offers nothing of the sort: temperatures are far below freezing for most of the year, the interior is a desert of ice, and there is no burrow, rotting log or sun-warmed rock to shelter in. Nor is there prey to support a predator on land. The continent's only substantial land animals are tiny invertebrates like springtails and a single wingless midge; everything larger, seals, penguins, seabirds, is warm-blooded and feeds from the ocean rather than from the land. Ireland and New Zealand are the other famous snake-free places, but for a different reason: they are islands that were either glaciated or long isolated, and snakes never reached them or never re-colonised after the ice retreated.

The largest permanently land-based animal in Antarctica is a flightless midge only a few millimetres long.