50 Fun Facts About Venomous Snakes

Folk rhymes say a North American coral snake is the banded one whose red rings touch which colour?

Yellow rings separate the red and black ones on the eastern coral snake, so red always meets yellow. On its harmless mimics, the red rings border black ones instead.

A rattlesnake adds a new segment to the rattle on its tail each time it does what?

Each time a rattlesnake sheds its skin a segment is added, and that can happen several times a year, so counting the segments does not reveal the animal's age.

Which animal, the cobra-killing hero of Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, has cell receptors that resist snake venom?

The mongoose has acetylcholine receptors altered so that a cobra's toxin cannot bind to them, a mutation known in only a handful of mammal groups.

Which African snake, whose name Kobe Bryant took as a nickname, can move at up to 16 km/h?

The black mamba is the longest venomous snake in Africa, and Bryant took the name from an assassin's code name in the Kill Bill films.

Harmless corn snakes are often killed because they resemble which venomous pit viper of the eastern United States?

The copperhead often freezes instead of slithering away when approached, so many bites happen when people unknowingly step on or near one.

Which venomous pit viper of the southeastern United States is also widely known as the water moccasin?

The cottonmouth is one of the world's few semiaquatic vipers, and it is named for the white lining of the mouth that it gapes to show an intruder.

What do doctors call a strike by a venomous snake that releases no venom at all?

A dry bite can still be painful and cause swelling, and by some estimates about half of all snakebites deliver no venom.

A threatened cobra forms its famous hood by spreading which bones in its neck?

A cobra swings its ribs outward to flatten the neck into a hood, and it usually rears up and hisses while it does so.

Which zigzag-backed snake is the only venomous species native to Great Britain?

The common adder is found across Britain but is absent from Ireland, and although its bite can be very painful it is rarely fatal.

Among North American snakes long thought harmless, which familiar garden species actually makes a mild venom?

The garter snake makes a mild venom, discovered in the early 2000s, but it has no effective way of delivering it and cannot seriously injure a person.

Which banner of the American Revolution shows a coiled timber rattlesnake above a warning not to tread on it?

The Gadsden flag was designed in 1775 by Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, at a time when the rattlesnake stood for the unity of the Thirteen Colonies.

Biologists call a snake venomous instead of poisonous because it delivers its toxin in which way?

By injecting it through fangs, a snake actively delivers its toxin into a wound, whereas a poison works passively when it is swallowed, inhaled or touched.

Which Asian snake is placed in the genus Ophiophagus, named for its habit of hunting and eating other snakes?

The king cobra chiefly hunts other snakes, including its own kind, and despite its name it is not a true cobra of the genus Naja.

Antivenom, often purified from the blood of horses that have been given venom, is made up of which proteins?

Antibodies form in the horse after small doses, on the same principle as a vaccine, except that the immunity is raised in the animal and then passed to the patient.

Which harmless snake of the southeastern United States mimics the bright bands of the venomous coral snake?

Scarlet kingsnakes stood in for coral snakes on screen in the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane, and unlike the real thing they have red snouts.

The 'Big Four', among them Russell's viper and the spectacled cobra, cause most serious snakebites in which country?

India has a single widely available antivenom that was made to neutralise the venom of all four species at once.

Which of these northern US states has no venomous snakes, while the other three all have native rattlesnakes?

Alaska has none, yet timber rattlesnakes survive as far north as southern Minnesota and are listed as endangered in Vermont and Connecticut.

On which island does the Book of Acts say a viper fastened onto the shipwrecked apostle Paul and left him unharmed?

Malta's islanders, the account says, expected Paul to swell up or drop dead, and when nothing happened they decided he was a god.

The 'fierce' in fierce snake, another name for which Australian species, describes its venom rather than its temper?

The inland taipan has the most toxic venom of any snake tested on laboratory mice, yet it is shy and placid and lives where it rarely meets people.

Which of these South American snakes is a non-venomous constrictor rather than a venomous pit viper?

The green anaconda, like all boas, has no venom: it strikes at prey that comes to the water's edge, coils around it and suffocates it.

Which US state is home to more kinds of rattlesnake than any other, with 13 species?

Arizona's total reflects where rattlesnakes do best: the large majority of species live in the dry American Southwest and Mexico.

The venom of elapids such as cobras and coral snakes mainly attacks which part of the body?

Nerves are the main target of elapid venom, which can cause a creeping paralysis that begins with drooping eyelids and ends by stopping the breathing muscles.

Which heavy-bodied African snake has the longest fangs of any venomous species, at about five centimetres?

The Gaboon viper also produces more venom than any other snake, and it hangs on to its prey with those fangs instead of striking and letting go.

Which rear-fanged African snake killed herpetologist Karl Schmidt in 1957 after he doubted its bite could be fatal?

The boomslang has venom that stops blood from clotting, and Schmidt kept detailed notes on his own symptoms almost until he died.

Among Australia's snakes, which species found around Sydney and Brisbane causes the most snakebite deaths?

The eastern brown snake hunts house mice, which draws it to farmland and the outskirts of cities, where it meets people far more often than shyer species do.

Which species is the largest rattlesnake in the world?

The eastern diamondback is also one of the heaviest venomous snakes anywhere: one shot in 1946 measured 7.8 feet long and weighed 15.4 kg.

Among harmless North American snakes, which one imitates a rattlesnake by coiling, puffing up and vibrating its tail?

The gopher snake is convincing enough to be often mistaken for a prairie rattlesnake, though it has no rattle and usually strikes with its mouth closed.

The hypertension drug captopril was modelled on a venom peptide from a pit viper native to which country?

Brazil's jararaca has a venom peptide that blocks the enzyme known as ACE, and captopril, the first ACE inhibitor, was built to copy it.

In 2017 the World Health Organization added snakebite envenoming to which official category of illness?

Listing it among neglected tropical diseases recognised that bites fall hardest on rural parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Which first-aid method, devised by Australian Struan Sutherland, slows venom moving through the lymphatic system?

Pressure immobilisation means firmly bandaging the bitten limb and then splinting it, because muscle movement is what pumps venom along the lymph vessels.

Which US state hosts the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Round-Up, the largest event of its kind in the country?

Texas round-ups may have removed as many as 125,000 snakes a year from the wild during the 1990s, and the Sweetwater event brings its small town millions of dollars.

Unlike a cobra's fixed fangs, the long fangs of a viper do what when the mouth is closed?

Viper fangs fold back on hinges against the roof of the mouth, then swing forward at the last moment of a strike, when the jaws can gape almost 180 degrees.

The word 'viper' traces back to a Latin term describing which trait of many of these snakes?

Bearing live young is the sense of the Latin vipera, thought to be a contraction of words for 'alive' and 'to bear'; many vipers give birth instead of laying eggs.

Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment, tested by US government chemists in 1916, was found to consist mainly of what?

Mineral oil filled most of the bottle, with a little tallow, chilli extract, turpentine and camphor but no snake at all, and Stanley was fined $20 for misbranding.

Which term describes an antivenom that works against the venom of several snake species at once?

Polyvalent antivenoms date from 1901, when the first was made against South American rattlesnakes and lanceheads; a monovalent one targets a single species.

Which South American snake is the longest of all vipers, with a record specimen of 3.65 metres?

The bushmaster is also the longest venomous snake in the Western Hemisphere, and the female is reported to stay with her eggs until they hatch.

Which nocturnal South Asian snake often bites people asleep on the ground, so painlessly that it can go unnoticed?

The common krait has small fangs and a bite that causes little or no pain, which can give a victim false reassurance about a highly dangerous dose of venom.

Which Australian state has just three species of land snake, every one of them venomous?

Tasmania's three can all deliver venom, though one of them, the white-lipped snake, has never been recorded causing a human death.

Which long-legged African bird of prey hunts on foot and kills snakes by stomping on them?

The secretarybird can stamp with a force five times its own body weight in about a hundredth of a second, and cobras are regularly among its prey.

Which North American mammal is highly resistant to snake venom thanks to a neutralising protein in its blood?

The opossum owes its protection to a blood protein named lethal toxin neutralizing factor, and snakes are among the small animals it eats.

Which Carthaginian general is said to have won a sea battle by hurling pots of venomous snakes onto enemy ships?

Hannibal, by then an exile serving Prusias of Bithynia, used the trick against the fleet of Eumenes II of Pergamon, an ally of Rome.

Which French co-creator of the BCG tuberculosis vaccine also developed the first snake antivenom in the 1890s?

Albert Calmette began studying venom at the Pasteur Institute's branch in Saigon, and his horse-derived serum became the first antivenom sold commercially.

Which small snake of arid Africa and Asia rubs its coils together to make a sizzling warning sound?

The saw-scaled viper makes the sound, known as stridulation, with serrated scales on its flanks, and it gets faster and louder as the snake grows more agitated.

CroFab, an antivenom for North American pit viper bites, is made from the blood of which immunised animals?

Sheep are immunised with the venom of one of four North American pit vipers, and protein fragments purified from their blood make up the drug.

The rattlesnake genus name Crotalus comes from a Greek word for a rattle or which percussion instrument?

Castanet is one meaning of the Greek krotalon, and the name covers most rattlesnakes; a few smaller species are placed in a second genus, Sistrurus.

The spider-tailed horned viper, which lures birds with a tail tip shaped like a spider, is native to which country?

Iran's west is the home of this viper, which waves its tail tip until an insect-eating bird comes within striking range.

Harmless North American water snakes can be told from the pit vipers they resemble by which feature of the eyes?

Round pupils mark the harmless water snakes, which also lack the heat-sensing pit that sits between the eye and nostril of a pit viper.

Which Miami Serpentarium founder survived more than 170 venomous snakebites and gave his blood to treat other victims?

Bill Haast built up immunity by dosing himself with gradually increasing amounts of cobra venom, and he lived to the age of 100.

Which Asian snake is both venomous and poisonous, storing toad toxins in glands on the back of its neck?

The tiger keelback makes venom in its mouth but borrows its neck poison from the toads it eats, and mothers can pass those toxins on to their offspring.

Which southern African snake spits venom and spreads a hood like a cobra, yet belongs to a genus of its own?

The rinkhals can spit venom accurately up to three metres, and unlike true cobras it gives birth instead of laying eggs, sometimes to more than sixty at once.