Why are Australian snakes so toxic?

[Michaelangelica]

aus has some toxic stuff but so does africa and to a lesser extent asia.

 

yes, aus has very toxic snakes, but i think it is played up a little too much...

Agreed.

We mainly use them to scare New Zealanders.

It is a National Pastime.:thumbs_up

 

The Crocks are the ones that usally eat the Yanks. (They, (the Yanks), think they are Alligators)

[Ganoderma]

:) figured as much....they will believe anything eh?

 

i always thought you guys in OZ liked yankees...

 

Another thought is some snakes in the Americas have far better defense mechanisms so perhaps do not need the strength that Australian snakes do. I remember watch a program on discovery channel (I think they were using cobras) testing the differences in amounts of venom used for offensive (eating) and defensive strikes. it was a fair bit more in the defensive which makes sense. So.....if one of the big reasons for having venom is defense and you have other forms of defense (especially pit vipers) the venom strength may not be so important. NA's snakes also seem to be more so sit and wait while more of Australians are, for lack of a better word, hunters.

 

Delivery systems may play part as well. Australia has some large fanged snakes, like adders, but not much beats the length of a viper...perhaps the physical aspect of having smaller fangs means not as much venom is delivered meaning potent counts. Again, just thoughts.

[Michaelangelica]

:beer: figured as much....they will believe anything eh?

 

i always thought you guys in OZ liked yankees...

 

Crocs love them.

Especially those that go fishing in the Alligator River.

 

Crocs havent changed their genetic makeup for about 600 mil. years. They don't need to. They are mean SOBs. One ate a little 8 YO aboriginal girl yesterday.

The local Aboriginal Nation did not want any crocs killed as it is their sacred totem.

 

Snakes are not a problem in most of OZ.

I am surprised, however, that the USA does not use the lymph pressure bandage as first aid. It gives you 12-24 or more hours to get help from even the most deadly of snakes. Are Yanki snakes different?

[Ganoderma]

many of the snakes do have different venom, yes.

[Michaelangelica]

many of the snakes do have different venom, yes.

O, OK. Is that the reason a lymph bandage is not suggested first-aid or is the USA just behind Ozzie medical thinking?

[dagaz]

However venomous they are, Australian snakes are in dire (like extiction ) trouble. This is due to the silly introduction of the South American Cane Toad into N. Australia (Queensland) as a biolgical control to help sugar farmers. The toads have now taken over most of Queensland, in plague proportions. They are now moving south into NSW and west into NT threatning World Heritage areas like Kakadu National Park.

 

As far as I am aware most of our endangered snakes (e.g. the Broad-headed Snake) have been more highly impacted by habitat removal and tend to affect smaller, slightly less poisonous snakes. The bigger, more venomous snakes are still going strong. A good case is that of the Eastern Brown Snake - the main predator of juvinile Eastern Browns is the Red-bellied Black Snake (a non-aggressive snake with a rather non-innocous poison). Red-bellies are in serious decline due to cane toad predation (though still not on any official listings) and as a result the Eastern Brown (2nd most toxic snake in Australia, 4th in the world and extremely aggressive, especially during summer months) is actually much more prevalent now than prior to the introduction of cane toads (Eastern Browns have also been favoured by land clearing, unlike Red-bellies, which is another factor in the equation).

[Michaelangelica]

As far as I am aware most of our endangered snakes

Thank god!

an Australian who knows what they are talking about!

[TheBigDog]

I think that several of the species of snake in Australia have a common ancestry. So they have similar deadly effect, and are numerous. Fierce Snake, Taipan, King Brown, Common Brown, (all the "Brown" varieties) seem to my observation have a common ancestry, and they all are on the very poisonous list. The Red Bellied Black Snake, Tiger Snake, and another that escapes me have a different type of venom and may also be from a common sourse in the past. But I am not a herpatologist, I just pretend :) Come to think of it, I think I have a picture of myself with a bull snake we caught in the yard in Colorado...

 

Here is a bull snake we caught in the yard at our house in Colorado. The night before in the middle of the night Charlie (the dog) was going nuts barking at something in the tall weeds at the back corner of the yard where we dumped grass clippings. I went out with a flashlight and there was a terrible rattling and huffing/hissing coming from the grass. In the light of the flashlight I could make out the diamond pattern and it was striking viciously at the dog. I didn't want to deal with a snake in the dark, so I dragged Charlie inside. The next morning I looked all over but there was no sign of the snake. Then early in the afternoon there it was laying on the lumber pile next to the garage. It turned out to be a bull snake. A very aggressive bull snake. They mimic rattle snakes, very well it seems. I was confident that I had identified it correctly, but was was still very careful not to get bitten. The pictures that follow were me catching and releasing the snake on the far side of the pond behind our house.

 

Here it is on the driveway. I had sent one of the kids to get the camera to document the momentous event.

 

Behind our house was open space, with a creek and a pond. About half the neighborhood of kids had arrived by this time to come see the snake.

 

I released the snake at the far edge of the pond. Maybe 75 yards behind the back edge of the property.

 

It was back on the woodpile in under an hour. I released it two more times that day, taking it further each time. And it kept coming back. Finally it got to where I could not reach it under a big pile of branches I had pruned off of the trees. I flew off to work the next day. The day after that it bellied up to the back porch against the sliding glass door. The whole family sat and watched as Charlie dragged his cinder blocks accross the yard, creeping closer and closer to the snake. Until he had closed the gap and he killed it right there on the back porch. They tell me it was like watching a nature video. I was sad. I kinda liked the snake. I would not have let the dog kill it if I had been home.

 

Bill

[dagaz]

Before I became a science teacher I used to work in ecology/habitat restoration so have had quite a few snake experiences, however there is one that still blows me away (self-indulgent snake story follows, feel free to skip):

 

Myself and two colleagues were working at a rainforest remnant that had a serious infestation of the herbaceous weed Wandering Jew (Tradescantia albiflora). Wandering Jew forms a thick layer on the ground that prevents the seeds of many rainforest species from being able to germinate. So we were in there spraying it with round up. Halfway through the day one of my colleagues, who had just come back from filling up his spray pack, told us that there was a big brown snake right where we had our morning tea and where we would want to have our lunch. About an hour later I was the first one to finish my pack so went back out of the remnant for an early lunch. It was a stinking hot day (Australian summer) and apart from the remnant which we had been spraying all day the only shade was where the brown snake was meant to be. As I still had my spray boots on I wandered over and had a good look but couldn't see the snake. I went and got my lunch and came back and sat down. A few minutes later Darren, the same guy who had spotted the snake in the first place, came out of the bush and asked me if the brown snake was gone. I replied that it must have because I couldn't see it anywhere. He took another couple of steps then screamed at me "No its f***ing not! You're sitting right beside it you f***ing idiot!!!"

 

I looked down and sure enough there it was, I could have reached out and touched it I was sitting that close to it. At first I didn't do anything as I couldn't see its head, but then I saw that its head was actually tucked under one of the coils of its belly and it was looking straight at me. As soon as I saw that instinct took over and I bolted away - leaving my lunch, shirt and car keys sitting right beside the snake. The snake hardly moved during all this so (this is the bit that still blows me away today) I carefully made my way back to where I had been to grab my stuff, the snake barely moved but did flatten out the back of its head slightly as if it was thinking about it.

[Ganoderma]

it could be. i am honestly not too knowlegable about venom. however there are different types even in one specie sometimes.

 

frankly, in usa/canada there are no super deadly snakes (you need to go south more..). there are coral snakes (neurotoxic), which one has to be a little stupid to get bit by and there are vipers (theri venoms are too complicated for me to fully understand) which give you some time to seek medical help. its just not the same as australia where you can die in minutes...not that their venom is not toxic, cause it can kill...just differently and slower.

 

and of course there seems to be a lot more defense in NA venomous than in oz. most of our venomous are sit and strike and are not nearly as fast as old world elapids.

 

all my feild work has had to with non-venomous reptiles and western rattlesnakes, so i did not use a bandage. i am a little embarassed to say i dont even know what type of venom they are used for :shrug:

[Kriminal99]

Someone told me that they had a relative in africa that got bit by a poisonus snake while working on a car, and then got the crap shocked out of them by a car battery or something and it somehow neutralized the poison. Is anything like that really possible?

[TheBigDog]

Someone told me that they had a relative in africa that got bit by a poisonus snake while working on a car, and then got the crap shocked out of them by a car battery or something and it somehow neutralized the poison. Is anything like that really possible?

No, but it makes a hell of a story!

 

Bill

[Mercedes Benzene]

No, but it makes a hell of a story!

 

Indeed... It seems like one of those comedic (and ironically lucky) clips that people so much enjoyed at the turn of the century (20th)...

 

...except there were no car batteries...

[Michaelangelica]

I have been thinking about this thread

(I am a slow thinker)

1. I am surprised that Australia is considered the land of most toxic snakes, even if it is true

2. This is the reason it is so much fun to scare new Zealanders with plastic spiders

4. This is the reason (+Terrorist attacks) that everyone is moving to NZ- (no self respecting terrorist would be caught dead there -pardon the pun- Unless of course you were the dopey French Secret Service))

5. Terry Pratchett in his spoof on Oz (Fourecks) says that the safest thing here is "some of the sheep".

 

Snake bites account for approximately 125,000 deaths annually worldwide yet

snakebite is believed to have resulted in 38 deaths in the past 24 years in Australia. Mostly from idiots poking the snake with a stick!

Perhaps this is because of our better first aid and plentiful anti-venom?

 

Perhaps the Oz tourist board needs to point this out?

[LJP07]

Each particular habitat has it's own animal niche so to speak and snakes were cut off there, It was there that they developed this ability to use venom as a way of protecting them during evolution.

 

The same could be said of the African Elephant and why it's tusks are bigger than the Indian Elephant. They developed it for defence over generations and during evolution.

 

The snakes have developed an evolutionary characteristic that makes them a predator to another animal. That question could go for any animal on earth and the above answer still exhibits some characteristic that makes them a predator or defence mechanism to some other being.

[Michaelangelica]

I listened to a very intelligent, herpetologist professor from Queensland the other night.

I learnt lots about Australian snakes which I promply forgot

We do have THE most poisonous snake in the world but so far it has killed no one.

( It lives in the outback.)

 

Oz snakes don't kill tissue where they bite, like USA snakes, so a simple pressure bandage stops venom from moving from the bite. (The venom moves though the lymph, not the blood)

Often snakes don't inject venom when they bite.

 

Mostly Oz snakes HATE being poked with a stick.

(So do Crocodiles as a German Tourist found out recently)

 

This tourist info might be helpful ?

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)

A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

More helpful tourist info here

Funny ****

[Taraxanoid]

Its the lack of wildlife in areas where snakes are best suited to (the drier, hotter parts of Australia), so they only get few chances to obtain food. If their toxicity wasn't terribly powerful, they'd have less chance of immobilizing their prey and they don't have a lot of prey to try to immobilize in the first place.