>>Dr. Fry, I was reading the Hognose forum, and liked the way you refer to rear-fanged colubrids as venomous, but not necessarily dangerous.
Fangs for that 
I've been labouring to make this point but the current members of the 'Flat Earth Society' can't seem to get the point
> I then read your paper on Colubroidea venoms and saw that you categorized several genera as causing severe, dangerous, or lethal bites: Dispholidus, Thelotornis, Malpolon, Rhabdophis, Philodryas, and Phalotris. I believe you also red-flagged others: Macropisthodon, psammophiines in general with Psammophis particularly.
>>
Definately on the above.
>>In reading some of the other posts, it seemed to me that you had some concern also with the rufous beaked snake,
Since the rufous beaked is in the Psammophiinae family, this makes it inherently suspect (as do the very large venom glands they have).
>and the genus Thrasops.
>>
Jury is still out on this one. We'll be having a good look at Thrasops starting later in the year.
>>Are there other genera out there that you would consider "dangerous"?
Definately. Conophis is one that comes quickly to mind. For others, there is no data yet. We have several more aticles in the pipeline, including one that has been submitted on the relative neurotoxicity (some genera came out as absolutely scorching!). After we finish these lab based articles, we'll be reviewing all we can dig up on the various 'colubrids'.
> What about mangrove snakes
The Boigas are a mixed bag, with a decent range of toxicity going all the way up to being almost as toxic as death adders and some severe bites have been recorded including a suspected death in Sri Lanka. B. dendrophila are in the middle range of the toxicity but in the upper range for venom yield. The Boiga venoms are all rich in 3FTx (three fingers toxins), the classic cobra-style neurotoxins. However, the inefficient venom delivery means that not all the full load will be injected (particularly if contact time in minimised).
I would say that the Boiga species by and large would not normally cause a clinically significant bite and lethal ones are extremely rare occurances (with the most consistently reported clinically significant cases involving large feral snakes in Guam chewing on little kids for prolonged periods). That said, they certainly shouldn't be put in the same category as a radiated rat snake for example. They can envenomate you, I've been dosed twice by 2.2 meter specimens and it was best described as 'death adder lite'. Accompanying this is a ripper of a headache. Don't take any narcotic for it. I took some codeine for the headache of the second bite, the pain killer reacted synergistically with the neurotoxin and I was absolutely off my face.
I'd say they'd be suitable pets for teenage level onwards. They can be a bit of a handful sometimes and hooking them is sometimes a real pain (being arboreal and all They can be easily managed just by using gardening gloves and a long sleeve shirt since the back fangs are nowhere near long enough to get through gloves.
>and false water cobras?
>>
The FWC cobra venom is very viper-like in being rich in large enzymes. It does contain the elapid-style neurotoxins but in much smaller amounts than the Boiga venoms. Venom effects are primarily localised (swelling, burning) and systemic effects have been rarely reported. The venom yield is also smaller than a Boiga with the same sized head. An adult H. gigas will have a typical yeild of around 10 mgs while smaller B. irregularis for example can have double that. The lethal dose for a H. gigas would be about 100 mgs based on its similar toxicity to rattlesnakes. This is far less than they are capable of producing. That said, there has been one very nasty bite recorded that produced systemic envenoming and signs of neurotoxicity. It could be viewed as pretty much the maximum effect since the person let the snake chew on them for quite a while.
>>Thank you for your very interesting posts.
No worries mate.
Cheers
Bryan
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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
Deputy Director
Australian Venom Research Unit
University of Melbourne
www.venomdoc.com
