Hlócër or Hluig (Q."Snakes"; S."Serpents") were scaled carnivorous reptiles, distinguished from legless lizards by their worm-like bodies, lacking every extremity from forelimbs to ears to even lids over their piercing eyes. Their bizzare biology belied their wicked character; for they were corrupted creatures of Morgoth, who bred them with his own Serpent-demons and natural lizards to produce a predatory species which acted ever for his will, as assassins, spies, or merely as pets of wickedness. The Dark Lord himself would sometimes take the Fána of a serpent, great and wicked and seething, in which form he appeared to the Men of Hildórien and corrupted some of their number to become the Asrabi.
There were many species of snakes spread across almost all of Middle-Earth, for from the breaking of Angband many escaped in stealth to haunt the lands of the north, and others still were sheltered and bred by Sauron, Lieutenant of Morgoth, who spread them far and wide about the east and south. They ranged in size from Small snakes, negligible creatures of roughly three inch length with neither poison nor coil capable of killing a person, to medium Snakes, common in the realms of Sauron, which could be deadly even to Elves, to the ancient Great Snakes of Morgoth's fortresses, more than thirty feet in length and deadly to any living creature. Most were cunning and cruel even for beasts, and only the strangest and most wicked of peoples made friends of them. Known species of snakes in Middle-Earth include:
- the Death Head Viper
- the Egil's Viper
- the Ernethraich
- the green asp
- the Coireali
- the Giant Furred Snakes
- the Horned Snakes
- the Horse Viper
- the Kjerats
- the Nethairi
- the Nethraich
- the pit Viper
- the Rock Viper
- the Shaking Asp
- the Winged Viper
See: