Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Black Mamba Question.

if i had the chance to keep venomous, those and your death adders would be high on my list, beautiful snakes.....

You don't know the half of it. Most of us don't know the difference between to, too and two. We don't know the difference between then and than. We don't know the difference between bring and take, come and go, came and went, brought and took, ad infinitum. If you don't believe me, just peruse a few internet forums.

I think there have been a couple of bites form the Inland Taipan but nothing happen....of course that could mean the next 98 fully envenomate:D

As a side note, the fellow who first set out to get venom from the Coastal Taipan (back in the 1950s I think) to produce anti venene was bitten and died. But he managed to get the snake back to the laboratory.

The boomslang is interesting. There was a herpetologist Karl Schmidt who wrote a book in 1957, from memory Living Reptiles of the World and he died from a juvenile Boomslang bite as the book was released. I got the book as a Christmas present in 1960 when I was only 12. Apparently the Boomslang venom is extremely slow to act and there are virtually no symptoms for a couple of days and this resulted in people in Africa thinking it was not dangerous.

When it comes to comparing pit vipers and vipers to elapids I think if anti venene was available I would prefer to take a hit from a deadly elapid. Actually a good bite from a big Eastern Diamondback or Gaboon would be bad even if without venom:D

Keeping even a skink in Australia now needs a license, in fact the general setup for keeping reptiles is like our gun laws.

With the Red Belly, I don't think anyone has died from one but a friend of mine took a hit and was in and out of hospital for a bout 3 months, lots of kidney problem. I use to treat them in a bit of relaxed manner but not after that.

that sucks.....used to chat with a guy down your way that did venom research bout 9 years ago or so...Tim something.....Nass? Nais?, cant remember now, guy was bout half nuts but entertaining as hell to chat with.....came over here and visited another keeper down in Texas, used to have a pic of him handling a big ol' Texas bullsnake, had it tailed just like when he handles taipans and such in the venom lab....was funny as hell given the snake was completely harmless....

heres the Montana variety in a 2.5 gallon bucket

Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry is probably the main venom bloke here. He also has a forum

http://www.venomdoc.com/forums/

ive talked with him aswell.....nice bloke, was real interested with a study he did on some of the oddball rear-fangeds like the Hydrodynastes i was keeping at the time, 6 or so years ago....from what lil i talked to him seems like a down to earth guy that i would love a day to sit and BS snakes with...

Tim wasnt any big name guy, just the main guy in charge of the snakes at the lab he worked at i happened to cross paths with on the net a ways back....

His latest thing has been monitors having venom and in particular the Komodo. I think his forum with the Venom forum at the bottom has a lot.

We have some good monitors in Australia and 2 bigger ones.

looking back it seems kinda odd not looking for the venom in monitors, especially given they were looking at the komodo's saliva to start with years ago for the bacteria it contains aswell....

one of my must do hunts someday is after water buffalo down there, give me a chance to look for all things scaley aswell.......the wife isnt to impressed with that idea....she yells at me for diving for a racer or bullsnake.....in 7 years she hasnt broken me of the habit from the previous 17 of chasing them.....

I know what you mean

Of course where you shoot the water buffalo is also home to our big scaly special. There was a move by the Northern Territory gov't to give out a limited number of permits each year to shoot crocs on a "pay for trophy" basis but it never got through, the federal gov't would not approve.

If you're not an American and you choose to take him to a hospital, make sure you have enough garse (fuel) in your vehicle.

i dont know of any test that would be quick enough to be of help to test the venom......going to take a seriously specialized laboratory as far as i know, and time means tissue death with hemotoxic venom and you may only have hours with a neurotoxic....and its not a simple thing as some rattlers have primarily neurotoxic venom and there are cobras and other elapids(cobras, mambas, kraits, sea snakes and any Aussie front fanged snake are elapids as well as our coral snakes) that have primarily hemotoxic type venoms.....

in the US at the moment identification isnt important past was it a viper(rattler, cottonmouth or copperhead) or a coral snake, though if you were bit by a coral snake at this moment your kinda [bleep] as there is no coral snake antivenin in the US at the moment, none is currently being manufactured and the old stock pile of the last stuff hit its expiration date this last fall....at the moment all viper bites are covered under Cro-Fab though it works better for some species than others....however depending where your at it might be important to know if it was a mohave green or southern pacific as then the doc can be prepared for the neurological symptoms....

in other countries your prolly best off killing the snake and taking it with you to the hospital....

Not garse my friend, petrol or diesel.

I'm learning.

OK, according to this: http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html I just have another 304,446,238 to go.

Plus of course, the illegals

Black Mamba Question - was performed by Santana wasn't it? "Got a Black Mamba Question...."

That made me laugh.

Interesting thread. Snakes don't especially bother me; I have handled a 12 foot python, but steer clear of the poisonous kinds.

One year in Eastern California I found a cooperative subject, a Sidewinder. Interesting critters as some have horns on their heads like little dragons. Famous of course for their sidewinding locomotion.





Supposedly as Rattlers go, they are the least dangerous. Please Excuse my photo of a photo, as these were taken BD (before digital). The yellow stripe in the second photo is the center stripe on the remote road I was on, near Death Valley - it gives some scale of the little guy.

alright then, i spoke to the vet not more that 30min ago.

i told him about the whole forum debate. he found it amusing. he said that he still uses this method(electricity). since we are not too far from the Botswana border he is the vet for a couple of cattle farmers to the south of Botswana. he told me he knows of a guy that was bitten by a black mamba in botswana and on the way to the hospital(which is quite a long distance) the driver kept prodding the guy. and low and behold he is a alive and well today.


he went further and said:" i have it in black and white that this works"

Did a search on this and found lots of articles that discounted any shock effect, but found a couple of interesting ones-
http://venomshock.wikidot.com/
http://www.echotech.org/technical/az/aztext/azch11di.htm#Elec
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/05/science/the-doctor-s-world-new-shock-therapy-for-snakebites.html
http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=388961