Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was always under the impression that venomous snakes were immune to their own venom. A reptile vet told me an interesting account of a Banded Egyptian cobra that had bitten itself on the tail. The bite was witnessed by the owner. A large necrotic area developed and had to be treated. He maintains that the damage was characteristic of damage from envenomation, rather than a secondary infection. Anyone else heard of or seen anything like this?

The snake you are probably referring to is (was?) owned by a frequenter of these forums. MsTT is the nickname she goes by. Do a search through the Venomous Forum, I believe you'll find her post where she documented photos of the bite wound and the treatment. While it is true that snakes probably have an immunity to their own venom in moderation, a really nasty bite like one that can be given from a 7' haje could mess with any animal's physiology, regardless of what that animal is. There have been numerous cases of certain venomous snakes "accidentally" killing each other during breeding attempts. The one I know best to demonstrate this one is the Rinkhal (Hemachatus haemachatus). Susan Hunter once described her attempts at breeding them and talked of her male biting and fatally envenomating the female. Another person I know that has tried to breed them said that his female killed three of her partners by the time a successful copulation was completed. The likely scenarior in these cases are the tendecies for many snake species to bite the neck region of their partner, and with the rinks, they probably just get a little too excited and accidentally envenomate with copious amounts as they breed. Whatever the case, it has made me decide that my little female rink will probably stay a virgin all her life, as those snakes are just a little too expensive to have them kill each other. I suppose though that if you had the time and patience, you could just sit there for a few hours during each introduction and make sure they don't bite each other; but then again, I doubt they'd breed very readily with an eager human standing there with hook or tongs in hand. Anyway, hope this helped you a little.
-Chance
River Valley Snakes

If this female owner of the aforementioned cobra had Dr. Rex Koester as the attending vet, we may be talking about the same incident. While I have no experience breeding elapids, I have plenty of experience breeding colubrids. Neck biting is a common behavior by males in subduing and controlling females. If male cobras envenomate and kill their mates on a regular basis, cobras would have been extinct a long time ago. Seems like any cobra with any sort of open mouth wound would be subject to self envenomation and possible suicide. Sounds a bit bizarre to me.

.

Check out the attached link. It's a detailed report on the case you're referring to.

Fortunately, my only experiences with self envenomations have been with copperheads. I had a laticinctus that was completely asymptomatic after biting her own tail. I also have a pictigaster that recently bit himself on the tail. He had some swelling that subsided after a couple days and has been fine since.
Chris
cobra self envenomation

If I'm not mistaken, I believe there have been documented cases of neonate crotalus deaths by self envenomation.
-----
GratefulFred

A zoo I worked at back in the 70's kept a colony of Sistrus m. barbouri together in a large aquaria and were in the habit of feeding them all together with live rodents. as you can imagine this resulted in the snakes recieving a lot of bites to themseves and others within range when the food was released with them (nobody said they were bright "The zoo keepers that is". The usual result of the bite was a great deal of localized swelling that would disappear after a week or so. There were occasional deaths but those could be attributed to infections from bites in critical areas. No autopsies were done so I cannot confirm this...Frank

It is so terribly sad to hear of crap like that happening. Sill people.
-----
GratefulFred