Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone here knows how the Inland Taipan stacks up against the following creatures, as far as toxcity is concerned?

1)Box jelly

2)Cone snail

3)yellow arrow frog

4)Various spiders - Sydney funnel web, black widows etc.

>>Does anyone here knows how the Inland Taipan stacks up against the following creatures, as far as toxcity is concerned?
>>
>>1)Box jelly
>>
>>2)Cone snail
>>
>>3)yellow arrow frog
>>
>>4)Various spiders - Sydney funnel web, black widows etc.
>>

All are more toxic. This is partially a consequence of those venoms having on average much smaller components. A lot more molecules of a 2-3 kDA toxin (the average size of conotoxins) can be packed into 1 milligram than a 200 kDA toxin could (the size of the dominant toxin type in Oxyuranus microlepidotus venom). So its a bit of a case of comparing apples and oranges. However, the poison dart frogs are of another level entirely. While they are much much smaller on average (they are small organic molecules vs. the peptides/proteins of the other venoms) they are also much much more toxic even on a molarity level.

Cheers
Bryan
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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Australian Venom Research Unit,
University of Melbourne
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Population and Evolutionary Genetics Unit,
Museum Victoria
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http://www.venomdoc.com

Wow! That's some awesome info. I didn't know that different venoms weren't all the same size on the molecular level. Thanks for the reply.