Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I think I've asked you this before... without answer, but I'm so curious.

Why the name?

I recently discovered while looking for some meds for my corn snake that colchicine is a diurectic heart drug used in treating a congenital disease in shar-pei. (I"m sure there must be other uses)

Is it also latin for some herp species?

Ian

LOL. It's both latin and grecian for "toad-hugger." It has other uses as well. It's especially useful for little girls that like to play with chemicals.
Shane
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Shane's Herp Lifelist
http://www.geocities.com/shane77@sbcglobal.net/my_page.html

Everyone here has a funny login name, so I don't know why I am always singled out. For the longest time Ian, I thought YOUR name was Joey S. Green. So what's the story on yours?

I took a plant anatomy class when I was a sophmore in college. I heard the word then and immediately thought, if I ever have my own band, that's what I am going to call it! Lo and behold, I wound up having a band named Colchicine for a number of years. I had a website for the band, and of course I'd have an email. If it were my email I'd naturally use it as my log in. 7 yrs later, the band is long gone but now it's part of my identity. I even met a good friend of mine because of my email. She is Indian was working on her masters on plant genetics in India and had a friend with a similar address and accidentally wrote me. We are good friends now, she is doing her PhD in Connecticut now, and we have even met once.

SO! Colchicine (KOL-chi-seen) is not herp related at all. "Colchicine is a highly poisonous alkaloid, originally extracted from plants of the genus Colchicum (Autumn crocus, Meadow saffron). Originally used to treat rheumatic complaints and especially gout, it was also prescribed for its cathartic and emetic effects. Its present use is mainly in the treatment of gout." Nothing all that flashy there. Interestingly, it's what it is used to make seedless watermelons and was at one time thought to be the miracle cure for cancer!

http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/botany/colch.html
http://www.leedoreymd.com/colchicine.htm
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Virginia Herping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VaHS
Virginia Herpetological Society
http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/VHS

"The irrational fear of snakes is the only excuse a grown man has... to act like a complete sissy" - Colchicine

... nature has ceased to be what it always had been - what people needed protection from. Now nature - tamed, endangered, mortal - needs to be protected from people. When we are afraid, we shoot. But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.
Susan Sontag

yer always singled out because it is a cool name, and now I know it has a cool story to go along with it! Thanks

Mine aint that exciting. I was new to computers, let alone the internet, and naturally one of the first sites I end up at is kingsnake. It asks me for some kind of password thingy and all I can think of is the animal's names in my room. So...

Joey iS a nice and vibrant Green madagascar day gecko (phelsuma m. grandis) that lived on my desk.

Ian

ps, I always thought crotalus would be a cool band name, but I can't play anything, although I've tried, and of course my singing could wake the dead---

Crotalus is the name of Kevin (N.E.R.D.)McCurley's band in New Hampshire. Funny coincidence?

www.newenglandreptile.com/crotalus.html

That is so funny, i was thinking to myself, ' Im sure theres a group called crotalus but couldnt think where Id heard it', when you posted this i realised as Ive just read Kevin's Book.!!
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www.hognose.co.uk

that's cool. I'm up in Canada and have never heard of the such.

Back in the late '60s, my HS biology teacher had a vial of colchicine on the shelf. His explaination was that the stuff had the effect of disrupting cell division of plants that created "super plants" with twice the chromosomes. I speculate that I was not the only one soaking pot seeds to achieve this affect.
PS The hypothesis was rejected.

>>Back in the late '60s, my HS biology teacher had a vial of colchicine on the shelf. His explaination was that the stuff had the effect of disrupting cell division of plants that created "super plants" with twice the chromosomes. I speculate that I was not the only one soaking pot seeds to achieve this affect.
>>PS The hypothesis was rejected.

Colchicine can indeed do what your biology teacher described which is known as polyploidism. Plants with double the normal number of chromosomes are tetraploids (4n), and often grow larger and have more vigor than the standard diploids (2n). Inducing tetraploidism with colchicine is fairly common in the plant hybridization world, though colchicine is pretty toxic stuff and I doubt any HS biology teachers have it on their shelves anymore.

deg