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This is the paper where we show which components are shared in all the snake venoms (including the 'colubrid' venoms) and in fact are the recipe for the primordial venomous soup

Enjoy

Cheers
Bryan
Paper: Assembling an Arsenal.

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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
Deputy Director
Australian Venom Research Unit
University of Melbourne

www.venomdoc.com

Very interesting read...even with out crackers! (lol)

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Well, for some reason I cant open acrobat to read the paper. I looked on your website however and im wondering if you could explain some of your findings in laymans terms. How is it that some "colubrids" have the same venomous makeup as some elapids without it having the same effects? Is it simply that they cant deliver the same amount of venom without "fangs". I can see that venomous species inject deeper into the skin but even coubrids can break the skin so wouldnt that allow some venom to get into the blood stream and wouldnt you see some effects from that? Thanks for any help in understanding this material.

EP
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Occupants not paying rent:
7 balls
2 corns(normal, candy cane)
1 pueblan milk
1 everglades rat
1 cal. king
1 gray band king
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
2 fish
1 rat
5 cats

>>Well, for some reason I cant open acrobat to read the paper.

Have you been able to open PDF files on your computer before? In any case, download (for free) the most recent version of acrobat reader from
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

> I looked on your website however and im wondering if you could explain some of your findings in laymans terms. How is it that some "colubrids" have the same venomous makeup as some elapids without it having the same effects? Is it simply that they cant deliver the same amount of venom without "fangs". I can see that venomous species inject deeper into the skin but even coubrids can break the skin so wouldnt that allow some venom to get into the blood stream and wouldnt you see some effects from that? Thanks for any help in understanding this material.
>>

Actually they do produce the same effects. We have a paper in press showing that the toxicity is comparable to elapid or viperid venoms with similar composition and relative amounts of different toxin classes. There is a tremendous variation in the 'colubrid' venoms, with different lineages favoring different toxins. The Xenodontinae family venoms for example are very rich in large enzymes while the Colubrinae family vernoms are typically rich in three finter toxin neurotoxins. It comes basically down to venom yield and of course the fact that the delivery mechanism is not vastly efficient. This is of course what provided the selection pressure for the evolution of advanced fangs (which has occured independently on four occasions (Atractaspididae, Colubrinae (Dispholidus/Thelotornis clade), Elapidae and Viperidae).

Cheers
Bryan
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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
Deputy Director
Australian Venom Research Unit
University of Melbourne

www.venomdoc.com