Posted by:
BGF
at Fri Jan 30 20:37:30 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by BGF ]
We milked them the way we milked most of the other 'colubrids': knocked them out with zoletil, hit them with pilocarpine (to stimulate the release of the venom from the protein secreting cells, then injected atropin to reverse the pilocarpine effects (this lent itself of course to lots of lines from Pulp Fiction ). All up, it takes about a half hour a snake. We were doing ten snakes a day of various species, seven days a week for eight months. Back breaking work but the results were of course worth it 
Cheers
Bryan ----- Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
Deputy Director
Australian Venom Research Unit
University of Melbourne
www.venomdoc.com
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