While most Boigas have mild bites, this is due to only a small amount of venom being delivered rather than the venom itself being mild. We just published one study showing that some of the 'colubrid' venoms are just as potent as highly toxic elapids such as death adders. The key is how much actually get injected. The venom is plenty toxic but typically only a very small amount would work it into a persons arm before they get the snake off. A large Boiga would need to chew for several minutes in order to get the toxin production up to speed (they don't store the venom like a cobra does, rather they just make it as needed). The fangs don't deliver it too efficiently either so there is another bottleneck.

So its a case of snake with highly toxic venom produced in pretty small amounts and not delivered too efficiently. The snakes can be safely worked with simply by wearing gardening gloves and a long sleeve shirt.

Cheers
Bryan
Colubrid neurotoxicity paper


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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
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Australian Venom Research Unit,
University of Melbourne
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Population and Evolutionary Genetics Unit,
Museum Victoria
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http://www.venomdoc.com

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