What is molting in snakes?

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

For molting in snakes, the replacement cells for the skin grow on the same cycle and cohere into a complete unit. When this unit is functional, the snake’s eyes become a milky blue, the old skin loosens all over the body, and the snake rubs loose the old skin around the mouth and nose, then crawls out of the rest of it.