Fun Snake Facts

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Speaking of venom....

- There's are around 3,000 species of snakes worldwide but only about 450 carry any kind of venom, only about half of those have venom dangerous enough to kill humans.

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The number of venomous snakes dangerous to humans is just about right on, but the number of species that can be considered "venomous" is somewhat in flux right now. This work is very recent (only since early in this decade have we really known this)....so it is probably too new to make itself into many of the textbooks. New data suggests that the number of "venomous" snakes is considerably higher--up to ~2,000 species from hundreds. According to Dr. Bryan Fry of the University of Melbourne, "All colubrids are venomous except the rat snake clade which underwent a secondary loss after favoring constriction for prey capture." (Note because of the ambiguity of common names as well as the changing taxonomy of snakes-->not all commonly considered "ratsnakes" can be considered non-venomous. See this paper for what I mean!)

Up until very recently, the analytical chemistry tools necessary to detect venoms weren't really widespread enough to be put to use by many herpetologists/biologists when studying reptiles. I had a genetics professor in college tell me that when you look for something and don't find it there are always two possibilities (1) it really isn't there (2) you didn't find it because you didn't look hard enough or have the right tools to see it.

Condition (2) apparently is what went on when people came up with the list of venomous reptiles! When researchers really started chemically deciphering the saliva of snakes, they found venom toxins in many more snakes and lizards than previously thought. (In fact, the Komodo dragon does not have "virulent/toxic bacteria", this is a myth, and instead it has venom!) As with most things in biology there is more of a continuum than simply "hot" and "cold". Another way of seeing this is to think outside of the anthropogenic box. What is cold to us might be potent enough to stun a small soft skinned prey item like a frog or gecko and allow a snake previously thought as "non-venomous" to shallow its prey. See this post of mine as well.

What really separates species that can be considered "hot", "warm", and "cold" to us isn't so much the presence of venom as the way it is delivered. There's the quicker front-fang, rear-fang injection methods and then there are those that simply bite/chew their prey to inject venom into it. But the chewing method works fine on the prey of those species.

All of this is part of the working hypothesis that is the Toxicofera hypothesis, which states that all squamates are descended from a single venomous ancestor. This hypothesis predicts that there are evolutionary remnants or vestiges of venom in all snakes. Current research is looking for venom genes in boids. If found, this would be further evidence for this hypothesis.

A lot of herpers probably won't welcome this research, because it could be easily misconstrued by those who want to ban herps. Increasing the number of venomous herps is not going to immediately win us any votes with the biologically illiterate and those who only superficially and irrationally fear all snakes and reptiles. Some people have and will try to censor this research, ignore it, or dismiss it, but I think it's better to be informed on what the research is really saying. That way herpers can respond to it intelligently! Further, this research isn't going to go away-It’s likely to get more and more press/attention in the future. The fact that many more snakes contain venom than previous thought, some of which is biochemically quite complicated, means that the venom treasure trove for pharmaceutical companies and clinicians is a lot bigger than we previously thought! This research could be used positively by all those who love herps to push for more widespread reptile conservation. I reminded of a quote.....

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught." -Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist

Furthermore, it is essential, in my opinion, that those who own 1 or 100s of snakes really understand that the presence of venom isn't the only thing to consider when deciding if a snake is dangerous or "hot" to us! The quantity (dose) and types of venom, the delivery method, etc. all make a difference. Some sources that I consider pretty reputable as far as science news even blow the new research a bit out of proportion in their byline. See this article from Science Daily. The title "Venom Hunt finds "Harmless" Snakes a Potential Danger" is a bit misleading. They forget to put the words "could be" before "a Potential Danger". They also don’t do a good job of quantifying the danger. Some swelling and failure of blood to clot at a bite site isn’t necessarily life threatening!

If you really want to learn about the details of this research see the following list of primary research publications. http://www.venomdoc.com/publications.html The Venomdoc site also had its own forum.

The paper linked above, the Nature paper from 2005, and the 2004 Molecular Biology and Evolution paper are a good place to start in the literature.

I also hope this post will help shed some light on what is a complicated "current science events" subject.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

See this post of mine as well.

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Sorry about the dead link above....here's the correct link.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...20&postcount=4

Mendel..... :handshake :bow: Stellar post!

~mike

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Originally Posted by wildlifewarrior

Mendel..... :handshake :bow: Stellar post!

~mike

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Thanks.

Mendel, as always, Thanks for the invaluable psot. Tons of informative reading in there.

mendel if i was a moddie... i could have happily fixed that link for you :D

thanks for sharing this info. can't wait to tell my hubby about the komodo dragon... :sweeet:

Here's a nice link with some fun snake facts, too. It has the biggest, smallest, heaviest, etc. Some of them were obviously already covered, but still it's a fun site with some good info.

melissa, i don't see a link here :(

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Originally Posted by python.princess

melissa, i don't see a link here :(

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Sorry! Thanks for waking me up....
http://www.cfrar.com/snakefacts.htm

This has been, by far, one of the very best threads I've ever read. Thanks to all who contributed. Special thanks to Joanna and Mendel. You guys rock! :rockon: