Warning to dog owners in the UK after a ranger finds three venomous snakes - via Herp Digest

By Western Daily Press  |  Posted: April 30, 2015

A wildlife ranger was stunned when she went on a country walk and discovered three venomous snakes - including a black adder.

Amanda McCormick stumbled across the snakes huddling under a tin sheet, and reminded dog owners to take care when out walking to help protect both dogs and the snakes.

The National Trust warden found a black and green male, a brown female and a completely black female adder - as well as a friendly grass snake - huddling under the metal sheet for warmth.

Amanda found the group as she was leading a walk through the North Downs near Dorking, Surrey, on April 16.

She said: "Over the years my volunteers and I have looked under many reptile tins, but we've never found such colour variation before.

"The black adder is an Edmond aberration."

Only a very small number of adders are melanistic - the opposite of albino - because their skin contains too much of the dark-coloured pigment melanin, meaning they area completely black.

Amanda added: "You don't see them very often so it's very unusual to see three together, especially of such different colours.

"I've been on this site for seven years and I've never seen anything like it.

"Adders aren't aggressive at all, and will try to escape if threatened.

"Only really stupid dogs are at risk, because they're more likely to approach an adder than a person is.

"If people suspect their dog has been bitten by one, we urge them to seek veterinary advice."

Extreme fishing: Hunting for deadly sea snakes

Every year 80 tonnes of venomous sea snakes are harvested in the Gulf of Thailand, but it's a dangerous business and the snakes might be threatened.

Presented by

Melissa Hogenboom

Each month, fishermen in the Gulf of Thailand risk their lives harvesting live sea snakes. It's risky for both parties: the snakes are in danger of being over-harvested and the fishermen could get bitten.

Scientists are now calling for a monitoring programme to assess the impact the on-going trade will have on their population numbers and to look how it affects the ecosystem.

A team reports in the journal Conservation Biology that fishermen have noticed a decline in their population since 2009. The researchers now want to understand if this is due to overfishing or other factors like pollution.

Read more ...

Evolution and venomous snakes: Diet distinguishes look-alikes on two continents

Date:

June 10, 2014

Source:

University of Michigan

Summary:

On opposite sides of the globe over millions of years, the snakes of North America and Australia independently evolved similar body types that helped them move and capture prey more efficiently. Snakes on both continents include stout-bodied, highly camouflaged ambush predators, such as rattlesnakes in North America and death adders in Australia. There are slender, fast-moving foragers on both continents, as well as small burrowing snakes. This independent evolution of similar body forms in response to analogous ecological conditions is a striking example of a phenomenon called convergence.

Read on

Your Next Nightmare: Venomous Snake Bites People in Their Sleep

By By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, Staff WriterApril 26, 2014 8:35 AM

Unlike most venomous snakes, which tend to bite people who are either handling them or who surprise them, the large Australian mulga snake has also been found to attack people who are asleep.

In a new study that examined 27 cases of people bitten by the mulga snake, researchers found that seven of the victims were asleep when they were bitten, between midnight and 5 a.m.

Such bites were not common — most of the people in the study who were bitten had intentionally made contact with a snake. For instance, one victim was bitten while playing with a snake in the garden, and another was bitten while feeding a pet snake. 

But 10 people who were bitten had encountered a mulga snake unintentionally, and the fact that seven of these victims were bitten while sleeping "is noteworthy since it represents 70 percent of identified cases involving bites without intentional contact, and suggests that bites sustained during sleep may be more common than previously reported," the researchers wrote in their report.

Continued

Oldest fossil evidence of modern African venomous snakes found in Tanzania

Date:

March 20, 2014

Source:

Ohio University

Summary:

Scientists have found the oldest definitive fossil evidence of modern, venomous snakes in Africa. The newly discovered fossils demonstrate that elapid snakes -- such as cobras, kraits and sea snakes -- were present in Africa as early as 25 million years ago. Elapids belong to a larger group of snakes known as colubroids, active foragers that use a variety of methods, including venom, to capture and kill prey.

Read on

Snake Farm Feels Bite as Drugmakers Reduce Venom Orders – via Herp Digest

BLOOMBERG (New York, New York) (Caroline Connan and Marthe Fourcade) 10/30/12

Venomous snakes in the French town of Valence are feeling the bite of Europe’s economic crisis. 

Latoxan, a company that farms snakes and scorpions to sell their venom to drugmakers including Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Sanofi (SAN) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE), expects sales to drop 30 percent this year as clients cut back on orders, said Chief Executive Officer Harold de Pomyers. 

Pomyers, who with just seven staff took in sales of 1.6 million euros ($2.1 million) in 2011, said he’s reducing his number of snakes to 500 from as many as 800 because of lower demand from Paris-based Sanofi and other drugmakers. Sanofi and Latoxan ended their collaboration this year, a Sanofi spokesman said by e-mail. 

“We are currently suffering from the crisis,” Pomyers said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the company’s headquarters, located in a residential area of Valence, near Lyon. “Sales are falling in European countries such as Italy, Greece or Spain, but also in the United States.” 

Latoxan employees extract venom from snakes including deadly black mambas and rattlesnakes by squeezing their jaws with their bare hands, a process they refer to as “milking.” Snakes that are no longer needed will be killed or given away, according to two members of staff who take part in the milking process. 

“Fortunately we only have one accident every 18 months,” Pomyers said.

One gram of venom can cost as much as 4,000 euros. The product is used by pharmaceutical companies for research and to manufacture anti-venom, according to Pomyers. Scientists from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology in Sophia Antipolis, France, have isolated two new molecules from black mamba venom and are studying them as a possible alternative to morphine, he said. 

About 5 million people worldwide get bitten by snakes each year and an estimated 100,000 die, according to Jean-Philippe Chippaux, a snake expert and director at the Development Research Institute in Cotonou, Benin. 

“You need very good venom from good snakes” to make reliable antidotes, says Chippaux. In the past year, Pomyers says he has diversified by adding about 3,000 scorpions to the French farm. Their venom can sell for as much as 35,000 euros a gram.