Posted by:
Gregg_M_Madden
at Sat Aug 10 17:17:37 2013 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Gregg_M_Madden ]
Before you start spouting off things as fact, you may want to get the actual facts first.
Hognose snakes are truly rear fanged. Their fangs are independent from the rest of their dentition. They are also hinged and can be moved forward when the snake wants to engage them. They are in the spot where other rear fanged colubrids have their fangs. Do you think because the fangs are not heavily grooved or hollow that this means they are not fangs? Would you not consider a boomslang to be a venomous, rear fanged colubrid? How about a false water cobra? Barrons racers?. Non of those have hollow fangs. Your toad popping theory was crushed years ago. Toads and amphibians make up 25% of their diet at best. Please stop handing out old, outdated, and incorrect information out like that. It will only push us back in husbandry and knowledge.
Hognose snakes do indeed have a Duvernoy's glands which are in fact venom glands. The same as any other venomous colubrid iclucing boomslangs and stiletto snakes and false water cobras, and so on. Hogs do have venom. It has been proven and studied. Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry has a report or two on their VENOM, not their saliva. And contrary to popular belief, venom is not a "modified saliva". It is not related to saliva. Also, Troys reaction is atypical to an allergic reaction to its saliva. It is however, typical to being envenomed.
It is clear that you are just worried about being able to keep and sell hogs and not caring about disclosing good, factual information. Anyone looking to get into keeping Heterodon should know exactly what they are getting into.
The fact is, they will not regulate the species because they are not harmful or medically significant. They have tried a few times already and failed bad because even with the facts, hogs have never proven to be even remotely dangerous. So you can relax a bit and work your way out of your huge state of denial. BSing people is not the way to progress in the hobby.
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