Poisonous snakes and venomous pythons

[Oxylepy]

So, there are a couple poisonous snakes, notably garter snakes that eat rough-skinned newts and Rhabdophis keelback snakes which they get from eating frogs.

Also, all snakes originate from a venomous ancestor, constrictors included. Pythons do produce toxins known from venomous snakes. So, yes, pythons technically have venom, despite it being extremely weak.

[janeothejungle]

So, there are a couple poisonous snakes, notably garter snakes that eat rough-skinned newts

Wait, what? Do you have a citation for this? Garters are notably co evolving with the newts (i.e. Developing better sodium channel blockers to resist the toxins), but ingesting and neutralizing a poison does not automatically mean that the snake is then 'poisonous' (which generally implies the use of toxins as weapons or defense). Possible I missed a publication, but I'd be interested in seeing the reference on this.

http://https://phys.org/news/2014-11...nous-newt.html

Edit: I'm just going to assume you're going back to the Fry studies? Which begs an interesting question. Is a snake truly 'venomous' if it has no way to functionally use any of those ancient compounds?


~ Kat

[Oxylepy]

Here is a frequently cited publication on poisonous garter snakes:

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...enomous_Snakes

The issue is it continues to be present within the body of the animal, meaning things which injest the snake may be affected by the toxic, ergo poisonous.

Yes, that is from the Fry studies, and yes a semantic argument is valid.