>>I knew that hognose and some garters had this but ALL colubrids? Somebody in the know PLEASE give me a head's up on this because I am finding this hard to believe. Although that patchnosed experience was quite convincing!

It's not very often a scientist says this , but trust your own eyes on this one. The vast majority of colubrids (with some exceptions, such as the North American rat snake/corn snake/gopher snake/king snake group) do have venom glands, and it turns out that most actually produce some pretty potent venoms. Most are harmless to humans, but that does not mean that they don't have venom, it just means that they can't ordon't inject enough of it to do damage. Same situation as in spiders, they are all venomous, but most are harmless to humans.

Check out the papers by Bryan Fry, myself and others at the link below.

cheers,

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