>>So cool. I have often wondered if they were "Venomous" Its just so hard to say unless someone gets bit which is so highly unlikely with this placid and tinnny mouth creature or someone does a gas cromatograph study of the "saliva" to see weither or not it would be considered venomous to humans. Also Consider that a good medication in high doses could also be considered poison. More than likely the western would be more toxic but still highly unlikey with yeilds considered and appropriate administration to be dangerous. They are great! I went hunting for them in Kentucky and they are so seclusive but so doscile.


Human effects are totally irrelevant as to whether or not something is venomous. Most spiders cause undetectable human effects either through inefficient delivery or through too small of venom yields. Their prey items, however, are utterly screwed. Whether or not something is venomous comes down to whether or not it has a specialised gland that produces toxins that target physiological systems. Pretty much all the advanced snakes are venomous with the notable exception of species that have switched to constriction as alternate form of prey capture (the American bullsnake/pinesnake/ratsnake clade) or switched to a dietary preference that does not require immobilisation such as snails/slugs or bird eggs. Other than that, they all still have venom and ringneck snakes are no exception. This study was a nice piece of work. The true venomous nature of the non-front-fanged snakes has been overlooked simply because of arrogance on our part. We have assumed that we are somehow special. If something doesn't affect us, then this must somehow be an important piece of data. When in fact it is evolutionarily irrelevant. What is important is the perspective of a five gram frog.

For some in-depth information about venom evolution in advanced snakes, have a read of our rather sizeable study that was just released
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1397914,1397914

Cheers
Bryan
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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
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Department of Biochemistry,
Bio21 Institute,
University of Melbourne
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http://www.venomdoc.com

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