Has anyone seen any data on venom yield for these hyper-long-glanded snakes??

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Yes, I actually have an old paper about that; "Venom yields from three species of side-biting snakes (genus Atractaspis, Colubridae)" by WR Branch, published in Toxicon 1981.



He tests the yields of Atractaspis bibroni, A. dahomeyensis & A. engaddensis. He also mentions that the yields of A. microlepidota as reported by other authors is similar to that of A. engaddensis. There is no mention at all about the size of the venom glands in this article, but the amount of venom for the first two species are very much smaller than from the latter two. In light of what I found in Kochva's article (as I mentioned in an earlier post) about the very long glands in these two species I think it plausible that the glands of the first two species isn't as long.



Data from the article (the yield is wet weight);

A. bibroni, 5 specimens milked, length of specimens btw 337 and 430 mm, average venom yield 4,2 mg.

A. dahomeyensis, 3 specimens milked, one 412 mm long, one 525 mm long, one of unknown length, average venom yield 4,1 mg.

A. engaddensis, 1 specimen milked, length 641 mm, average venom yield 27,5 mg.



One thing I found interesting was the fact that he couldn't get significant amounts of venom from the snakes by massaging it out while they were anaesthetized, instead voluntary bites very necessary for venom ejection. Now I don't have any experience of milking snakes, but isn't it usually possible to massage the glands to get them to eject venom? Is it perhaps possible that this doesn't work for these snakes because the glands are so long that you only create pressure on a very small portion of the gland? Even if the data to me suggests that the glands from the first two species are smaller than for A. engaddensis or A. microlepidota perhaps they might still be longer than usual, or perhaps they are as long but thinner, thus presenting the same problem. Any input from someone with knowledge/experience of this would be very welcome!



/Sundberg

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