There are two species of Sidewinder snakes in the Namib, the Namaqua Dwarf Adder and Peringuey's Adder. Both species of Sidewinder are found in the Namib desert. They use a sidewinding motion to move across the hot surface sand and have only a small part of the body on the hot sand at one time. This is also true of the Sidewinder rattlesnake of the desert southwest in the United States. The Sidewinder of Namib is a small snake only about one foot long.
Sidewinders use quick motions to wiggle into the sand to bury the greater part of their body.
The head of the Sidewinder is triangular in shape. The Sidewinder will usually only have the eyes and nostrils visible once buried in the sand. The Southwest Desert Sidewinder is a very small snake, usually about two feet long. Parallelism is the concept of two very similar species in very different parts of the world environment. The Sidewinder is a perfect example of parallelism where both species survive in very similar surroundings and behave in very similar ways.