# Venom potencey



## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

I have been looking at different types of snakes and what their venom is like. Without going through every type of snake I am struggling to find answers. What DWA snake have the least potent venom, ie you can get bitten and not have to worry about being dead in 15 mins and what has the most potent venom, ie which one will do you the most harm the quickest.


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

it depends on so many different factors that its a near impossible question to answer tbh


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

What type of different things can affect it? Is it to do with the person or the animal? I know that like taipans are meant to be really bad. What is the most common way of quantifying the venom potency. Is it how many people a bit can kill or what it can do to people or something else. I have seen lists of what is the most venomous but don't know what info they use to create such a list.


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

to elaborate a little, its possible for any DWA venomous snake to kill you in 15 minutes in certain circumstances ie an arterial bite. And in normal circumstances its pretty unlikely that anything will kill you quite that quickly.

There are some snakes that are considered less dangerous like pygmy rattlers, copperheads some of the aboreal vipers but even then in certain circumstances death is possible. And certain snakes that would definately ruin your week pretty quick, mambas, taipans, cobra species ect, even then theres the chance of having no a serious bite from one of the more dangerous species.


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

SiUK said:


> to elaborate a little, its possible for any DWA venomous snake to kill you in 15 minutes in certain circumstances ie an arterial bite. And in normal circumstances its pretty unlikely that anything will kill you quite that quickly.
> 
> There are some snakes that are considered less dangerous like pygmy rattlers, copperheads some of the aboreal vipers but even then in certain circumstances death is possible. And certain snakes that would definately ruin your week pretty quick, mambas, taipans, cobra species ect, even then theres the chance of having no a serious bite from one of the more dangerous species.


Cool. Thanks for that mate. Going to have a read about them. Just wanted to try and learn the differences between some of the venoms. I know they could all potentially be fatal in some circumstances and I suppose it depends on the nature of the venom where the bit is located as well as a multitude of things.


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

thats cool mate, theres people here alot more knowlegable than me when it comes to venom, im sure someone can answer any questions you may have


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## leecb0 (Apr 14, 2009)

there are plenty of sites which will give you the info on venoms but you need to understand how a venoms potency is worked out there is a site that lists almost all the venomous snakes LD50. you could also have a look on VENOMDOC


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

leecb0 said:


> there are plenty of sites which will give you the info on venoms but you need to understand how a venoms potency is worked out there is a site that lists almost all the venomous snakes LD50. you could also have a look on VENOMDOC



Thanks Lee. Will go and have a look on venomdoc and will hopefully pick up some good info there. I take it the LD50 is the figure that most people will use to quantify the results of which snake is most deadly? I presume that results may be different if they use other figures such as amount of known deaths or amount of critical injuries?


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## SiUK (Feb 15, 2007)

LD50 is how many MGs of venom it takes to kill 50% of a test group of mice


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

SiUK said:


> LD50 is how many MGs of venom it takes to kill 50% of a test group of mice


Yeah I knew that one surprisingly.:lol2:
The site I had been looking at was suggesting that it is MG's per Kg of body weight. Is that correct so for example if a snake had an LD50 of 1 and it was a 100Kg person it would take 100MG's to kill them 50% of the time?

I did not realise I have been on the venomdoc site before.
I was doing a bit of reading and after a previous post, suggesting the cobras are worse than a copperhead, and some additional reading and I was shocked to find that the Lowland Copperhead has an LD50 of 0.500 and a King Cobra has an LD50 of 1.91. I have a doubt about this, in that a Lowland Copperhead may not be the same as just a Copperhead as I am not that clued up of different localities or sub species or things that make them different if they are.

Wikipedia would tend to disagree with this in that it suggests that the LD50 of a King Cobra is 1.6-1.8 however it also likens its LD50 to that of the Chinese King Cobra which is 0.34 mg/kg. Again I am unsure of the differences between a King Cobra and a Chinese King Cobra but sureley they are not enought to have such a difference in LD50?


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

I have just looked at another example. The first site I looked at claimed the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake has a LD50 of 7.7 whereas Wikipedia claims it is 1.3-2.4. That is quite a difference. Do you guys have a decent site that will provide you with the correct inforamtion or is Wikipedia quite reliable?


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## Owzy (Jan 19, 2009)

This video I came across yesterday nicely shows what a mamba can do a mouse. Twitchy...

YouTube - Mamba bite - quick end


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## leecb0 (Apr 14, 2009)

The copper head you refer to is not the American copperhead but a much more dangerous Australian copperhead Astrelap superbus which is an elapid.


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## Herpalist (Jun 17, 2009)

russm said:


> I have just looked at another example. The first site I looked at claimed the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake has a LD50 of 7.7 whereas Wikipedia claims it is 1.3-2.4. That is quite a difference. Do you guys have a decent site that will provide you with the correct inforamtion or is Wikipedia quite reliable?


 
Does it really matter mate. The smaller dose could still do serious damage depending on the individual who takes the bite. Name of the game is not to get bitten at all in the first place.


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

leecb0 said:


> The copper head you refer to is not the American copperhead but a much more dangerous Australian copperhead Astrelap superbus which is an elapid.


I had a funny feeling they were not the same thing. The one I am referring to is a type of pit viper from north america right?



Herpalist said:


> Does it really matter mate. The smaller dose could still do serious damage depending on the individual who takes the bite. Name of the game is not to get bitten at all in the first place.


Yeah this is true. I know they are all dangerous but just trying to find out a bit more info on how they work, how they vary and why etc.


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

Owzy said:


> This video I came across yesterday nicely shows what a mamba can do a mouse. Twitchy...
> 
> YouTube - Mamba bite - quick end


The mouse is like.... I am sure I just felt something sharp, Breakdance, DEAD!


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## leecb0 (Apr 14, 2009)

russm said:


> I had a funny feeling they were not the same thing. The one I am referring to is a type of pit viper from north america right?


No the Lowland copperhead that you refer to is an Elapid from Australia "Astrelap superbus" is the scientific name. The American is the pit viper whos venom is a lot weaker


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## russm (Aug 28, 2009)

leecb0 said:


> No the Lowland copperhead that you refer to is an Elapid from Australia "Astrelap superbus" is the scientific name. The American is the pit viper whos venom is a lot weaker


Yeah sorry that was what I was meaning. The one mentioned earlier was the american one and the one I mentioned when talking about ld50 was the Australian one.


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## jamestheball (Apr 28, 2009)

Lowland copperheads are an Australian Elapid that are much more dangerous than the american copperhead.


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## McCase (Feb 10, 2010)

Remember the LD50 is a totally artificial measurement of a venom's potency. This is a lab experiment undertaken in mice - the results of an LD50 may not be relevent in any way to a human envenomation. Also consider that the amount of venom injected is important - the LD50 of both echis and naja naja is ~10-15 micrograms per mice - yet there is a massive difference in the amount that could be injected in a bite. As someone mentioned above, the best thing is not to be bitten at all. Dont let lab experiments guide your decisions for husbandry!


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