...... Challenge Accepted. <.<
Snakes? You want to hear what I know about Lord Orochimaru's Snakes? There is much to know, both about the contract animals, as well as the natural, chakraless animals which the contract-bound Snakes are related to.
There are generally two methods in which Snakes are summoned; through the obvious use of a special tattoo, and through hidden methods. The tattoo given to signers of the Snake contract resembles a snake which wraps around the user's arm, or another part of their body, I should assume, if one would prefer, though the arm appears to be most accessible. The tattoo is used by - excuse me...
Raising his hand to his face, Kabuto pushed up his glasses with his middle finger, the light passing over the lenses as a glare before it disappeared with his glasses now sitting in place. Looking back up at his sensei, Kabuto continued.
...My apologies. The tattoo is used by drawing blood, generally by biting one's thumb, and then weaving the handseals for a summoning, though the handseals and blood-drawing stages may be interchangeable depending on the situation, and then allowing the blood to run along the tattoo. Now, an interesting thing about the Snake tattoo is that one needs not actually be able to summon a specific snake to summon it if another user who can summon said snake is present; for example, when I was fighting alongside Master Orochimaru against Tsunade, Jiraiya, and that messy-haired brat Naruto, I bit my thumb and wove the handseals, but dragged my blood along Master Orochimaru's tattoo to summon the Snake Boss, Manda. Though I could have possibly summoned such a beast on my own, it was Lord Orochimaru's fight, so I used him to summon the snake to make him feel wanted...
Grinning slightly and pushing his glasses up again, Kabuto sat down and got comfortable, taking a second to relax before continuing.
Oh, right; the Hidden Method. This method I know a little less about than the Tattoo method. This method allows the user to summon snakes out of their sleeves, which normally requires the user to wear sleeves with lots of room for their arms and snakes to be summoned around their arms as well. As I said, I know little about this method mechanically, but from what I've seen in Master Orochimaru's usage, as well as the test-subject Anko, and the vessel-to-be Sasuke's usages, respectively, I can see that this "Hidden Method" of summoning snakes within one's clothing, specifically sleeves, before using them in battle allows the user to manipulate these snakes as an extension of their body, the snakes obeying what appear to be silent commands as if they were extra arms, used to reach out and grab, constrict, and bite. Of the two methods, using the tattoo appears to generally summon larger snakes, many if not all large enough for at least one, if not more, shinobi to ride atop, while the Hidden Method summons average sized snakes, if not longer than average in terms of length.
Staring into the sky, Kabuto chuckled to himself as he pushed his glasses further up on his face yet again. Perhaps he needed new spectacles; these ones continually slid down the bridge of his nose, and pushing them up constantly was slowly wearing on him. But, instead of worrying about that now, Kabuto simply sighed as he watched the clouds drift slowly; perhaps one day Master Orochimaru would bestow upon him new eyes, perhaps the Sharingan, or Byakugan, and he wouldn't have use for these annoying glasses anymore.
But you wanted to know all about snakes, don't you sensei? I've been going on about the ways I've seen them summoned, and their general sizes under the contract. Yes, there's a lot to know about snakes in the wild, the ones who are not summoned through contracts. Though they cannot utilize chakra, nor will they obey the commands of even practiced snake users such as Lord Orochimaru, wild snakes appear to be quite deadly in their own ways, and many snake contract-based ninjutsu techniques are based upon the abilities of normal snakes.
One said "ability" is the fact that many snakes in the wild enjoy to strangle their victim to death, slowly squeezing the air from their lungs until their food lays lifeless in the tight coils of their body; then it's eaten. A technique which the lab-rat Anko is quite proud of relies heavily on this, and is based around constricting herself and her opponent between large snakes, preventing any movement, and then killing them both; a terrible price to pay for victory... Another "ability of the snake" is that many serpents have their own venom within their fangs, from which we, as snake-users, have derived techniques to utilized poisonous snake bites to infect an opponent, and then allow them to wear themselves down to be killed easily.
Other special skills snakes have developed to defend themselves include the brille, clear scales which cover the snakes' eyes as a replacement for a human's eyelids. Though I don't believe any shinobi has, thus far, been able to reproduce this effect within themselves, I'm sure Master Orochimaru is working on it, and eventually this ability will be realized and utilized to its fullest potential. Another skill snakes have developed is the shedding of their skin, which Lord Orochimaru has already perfected on his own in order to leave his former skin behind when damaged or when there is no other means of escape, leaving through his own mouth to safety.
Resting a leaf atop his mouth and gently blowing on it's underside so as to push the leaf into the air, simply so that he could watch it fall again, Kabuto tutted his tongue and rolled his eyes upwards, towards the back of his head, as he thought some more, being on his back so as to prevent his glasses from sliding down once again during his explanation.
Aside from that... The snake boss is Manda, the Land of Snakes is inhabited by creatures which surpass our beliefs, as Lord Orochimaru has summoned a three-headed serpent from there... And a snake is crafty. We are unannounced, and strike quickly and with lethality. You don't ssee usss coming... And when you do, it'ss far... too... late...
Laying on his back, looking up into the sky, Kabuto's face grew dark as a cloud passed over the sun, casting a shadow over him. His glasses became so dark that, from the vantage point of a person standing, they could not be seen through. There was something evil about Kabuto's grin as he finished his rant on snakes. The only sound he made after he finished as a soft "hsss" until the clouds passed, his mouth open so little that it would be difficult to make out that he was the one doing it, had he not been the one to begin hissing his 's's earlier.