>>To continue a thread that claimed a shed Puff Adder fang could contain enough venom for a serious envenomation.

>>

>>I took a shed Puff Adder fang from a specimen that was 15 to 20 inches long. See image below. This ~1mm fang could only hold ~ 9ul of water at 20 Deg C. Clearly not enough venom to require 8 vials of SAVP Polyvalent to counter-act.



Hi Al,



Glad to see you actually trying it out!



However, how exactly did you measure the quantity of water?



Not trying to be a pain, but looking at that fang next to the ruler, the average thickness of the entire fang is only ~1 mm. This means that the **external** volume of the fang (i.e., tooth material venom canal) is only 10-11 mm cubed, i.e., 10-11 ul.



Clearly, of that volume, a proportion is made up of tooth material, and another proportion is made up of the venom canal. I don't know what the relationship is, but looking again at Klauber's diagram, the diameter of the venom canal is approx. half the diameter of the fang, so the cross-section surface area of the venom duct is 1/4 of the entire fang cross-section surface - in other words, the canal makes up ~ 1/4 of the total external volume of the fang.



Therefore, if the total fang volume is 10 ul, then the volume of the venom canal should be ~ 2.5 ul.



That's why I am curious how you measured the 9ul - these very small quantities of fluid are not easy to measure! It would certainly be worth repeating themeasurements multiple times and get some sort of feeling what your error margins are like.



Cheers,



Wolfgang
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