Reptile & Amphibian Forums

CG you have mentioned that the yt's bite was not as "bad" as a bite from tex. or eastern. I was thinking (cheerfully) back on all my Dry bites and they had a common denominator:

All my yt bites were from pissed off snakes that just didn't want to be held

All my eastern and TX bites were feeding responses and were MUCH worse bites.

I bet that's the case with you too?

I just think they don't "clamp down" when they are in defense mode like they do when they think they are trying to secure a meal from escaping !!

So true Dean, the WORST bites that I have ever had came from Easterns bent on getting fed. I described it to a friend as "Having your hand stuck betwen two razor blades in a vise." That about sums it up. Another one was a Unicolor bite YEARS ago, amid much hysteria and bleeding, same general feeling, like razor blades clamped down in a a vice. I dont even want to know what the bite of a w/cyellowtail feels like, feeding response or no feeding response, allthough I have had Pituophis that didnt hiss,let you pick them up, then calmly rotated their bodies and sunk their teeth in your wrist. Still, not half as bad as the feeding response bite, they just seem so DETERMINED to hold onto whatever it is they attack when they feed.

*cheers*

Fred Albury

I've told it several times...Clearly a defensive bite and it went thru my THUMBNAIL!!!! Quick refresh...Bubba's eye bad...Carl & wife giving him injection...Carl has Bubba somewhere behind the neck...Bubba has never before offered to bite(and luckily not since)...As soon as needle goes in Bubba's back, he turns around and very calmly and deliberately takes ahold of my thumb and does not LET GO until needle is out!!!! Pliers with razor blades!!!!
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Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas

Years ago I had a large male Eastern that I had raised from a hatchling. All the years I had him, he never showed any aggression or any inclination to bite..he was dog-tame. One day I was showing him to some non-herper friends (you know the type..."How can you keep those creepy things, don't you have nightmares? Aren't you afraid one will get out?". I was explaining how docile he was and how he had never bitten anyone or even tried to, and that it was perfectly safe to hold him. Just when I just about had them converted (in my mind, anyway) he calmly turned his head and clamped down on my left thumb...HARD, and started gnawing. All I could do was wait for him to finish. I suppose it goes without saying that my friends left unconvinced that snake-keeping was a safe hobby. That was, without a doubt, the most painful non-venomous bite I've ever experienced. My thumb bled for hours.

The only other colubrid that came close was a big Mangrove Snake that got the pad of my left index finger in those rear fangs and chewed for a bit. The Mangrove Snake incident was 20 years ago, a fresh import from Thailand that I had just picked up in a shipment of probably 70 or 80 animals at the New Orleans International Airport. I wasn't even sure what was in the bag when I opened it because it wasn't marked (half the time in those days they weren't). I learned a lesson from that one. It could have just as easily been a big Monacled Cobra or Russel's Viper or something like that. When I opened that bag, that snake came out of there like a rocket right at my face, mouth open looking for something to bite. I clamped the bag around him mid-body with my hands and then tried to grab him behind the head. That's when it turned ugly. At any rate, that was another VERY painful bite from a "harmless" snake.

I still have scars from both of those bites.