Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First of all read this page. http://www.herpnet.net/bite/ It is about a hog nose snake bite. From the looks of it all it would apear the snake is at lease mildly venomuse corect? If not can somoen explain what is going on in those pictures and text? I once had a W. Hognose Snmake but never got bit by it.
RR

They ARE mildly venomous. But as you probably know, they almost never bite. I treat mine like a non-hot and don't see any decent reason to change.

That is verry verry interesting I had one for all those year and never even knoew. I guess I was to young and dumb to look into stuf liek that back then. You see it is another classic example to do your homwork before geting a snake or any animal. Another point of interest is that I am about 95% poisitive my hog nose constriced its prey. Dose it not have toxic enough venom to disable its prey? Dose it even use its venome for prey? If not what good is it or what dose it use it for?
RR

The venom really isn't a big issue unless you happen to have a hognose that bites you all the time. Then there's the possibility of you becoming allergic to it. There are many colubrids which are rear fanged and venomous but not considered dangerous to humans. In fact, garter snakes are arguably venomous. (I'm not sure what the arguement is, I just know there is one .)
The venom is used to subdue prey, but these snakes eat mostly toads in the wild and it might not work so well on mice. They will use constriction in conjunction with the venom, because the venom would take a very long time to kill the animal outright, if at all. It's more of an aid. On the other hand, though, back when my hog ate live pinks, he didn't constrict them at all, but he 'chewed' on them, which helps get the venom into the prey. So I guess they use both methods depending.

My hoggies eat F/T prey, because they don't constrict and larger mice tend to bite back

The latin name for the hognose is Heterodon, meaning "diffrent teeth" The hognose uses his enlarged anterior teeth for it's natural prey: Toads.
If a hognose catches a toad it will start to eat it backwards (butt first that is )

The toad will inflate it's body to enlarge itself, but once the snake has come to the point that it can't swallow any further the larger teeth in the back of the mouth pierce the toads' air sacks and the toad "deflates"
The hognose will eat happily ever after

The vemon used by hognoses is more of a highly active saliva secreted by the "duvernoy's gland" (all snakevenom is saliva in fact) Hognose "venom" is highly active on toads, not on humans, unless you are allergic (you can become allergic or hypersensitive after multiple bites.)

I've kept a number of Ornate tree snakes or Flying snakes (Chrysopelea ornata) The guy I bought them from developed the same symptoms as the man on the Photo's you referred to when he got bitten.
I've never had any reaction to a Chrysopelea bite, and I've been bitten numerous times

The only thing I have to keep in mind is that I have a higher risk of getting into an anaphalactic shock after a bite by a "serious" venomous snake...
(Not that I was planning on getting bitten anyway )

Come to think of it, I've seen photo's and video footage of a bite on the arm by a human... That showed the same symptoms at the hognose bite. The reaction was starte by a bacteeria that is part of the normal flora in our mouths..

Someting to think about when you chew you T-bone eh?

Bye,
Peter

Regarding North American hognose snakes (Heterodon): According to Ernst & Zug (Ernst, C.H. and G.R. Zug. 1996. Snakes in Question. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 203 pages) "Experiments and behavioral observations indicate that the teeth are too short to deflate the toad; instead they channel venom into the bite and envenomation relaxes the toad for ease of swallowing."

Well, that's new to me, thanks for clearing that up

Cheers,
Peter

Mine's a little wierd but... he constricts his f/t fuzzies... not very efficiently, just a coil.