this morning i heard on national Geographic that they carry it. is this true?
Reptile & Amphibian Forums
Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.
Neurotoxic Venom in Eastern Diamondback?
happysurgeman
Oct 13, 2007 09:55 AM
Replies (3)
TJP
Oct 13, 2007 10:47 AM
Some populations in Fl have developed a mixture of hemo and neuro venom, much like some of the southern horridus.
SnakesAndStuff
Oct 13, 2007 11:32 AM
Also keep in mind that all snake venom is essentially a mixture of a LOT of different proteins, not just a single one. For this reason all snake venoms (well, I'm not 100% sure about ALL, but at least a lot) have both neurotoxins, hemotoxins, etc. Some venoms are just more weighted in one direction than the other.
flherp
Oct 15, 2007 07:37 AM
Is it specifically a neurotoxin or is it a cyto or myotoxin that causes a patient to exhibit neurotoxin-like effects indirectly? What were the effects that they observed? Have they isolated the suspect venom component to determine its action?
Some neurotoxins bind to sites on muscle cells and "lock" ion channels open yielding the clinical presentation of flaccid paralysis, others act on acetylcholinesterase and inhibit it from breaking down acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction yielding other symptoms (such as fasciculins found in Mambas). Other neurotoxins act on other sites to produce the observed clinical effects associated with that venom component.
