Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Could somebody possibly tell me what kind of snake this might have been.

Ok, a couple of years ago I was out in north/north-east Bulgaria excavating a Roman site. One day as I was getting out of a trench I felt what I thought was a stone hitting the back of my leg. About ten minutes later my leg began to swell and when tapped would ripple, for a while people reckoned that I had pulled a muscle or something however after a bit it became difficult to breathe and my mind began to go a bit. By this point my leg had swollen to quite a size and quite a bit of bruising had appeard around my ankle etc. After quite a few injections I was taken to hospital and was kept there overnight, by the afternoon of the next day I was pretty much fine the swelling had mainly gone (although to this day I still have a bit of a bump).

Hope someone can help identify what it was that bit me,
Dominic

You mentioned injections....of what???

~~Greg~~

I think the injections were anti-venom, steroids, tetanus and I think that was it. They also put me on a drip for a while.

You wouldn't happen to know which antivenin was used, would you?

~~Greg~~

Unfortunately not, I was kept pretty much in the dark. The only info that I was given was by the son of one of the nurses and that it was quite a venemous snake that hadn't been seen much in the area. I should also mention that they didn't find the snake however a nest of snake eggs was found near one of the walls we were excavating.

Dominic

Which makes me wonder how they knew what antivenin to use.

The antivenom might have been a polyvalent covering all the snakes in the area. I didn't think there were any venomous in Europe besides Vipera species (which don't lay eggs), but I've been very wrong before.

It seems like it could have been almost anything venomous. Maybe a scorpion, wasp, ant, etc that was on a rock that really did "tap" you.

I believe the only venomous snake in Bugaria is Vipera ammodytes (I don't think V. berus gets there). That's how the doctors would have known which antivenin to use.

And as meretseger points out, V. ammodytes is a live bearer, so the snake eggs you found had no bearing on the bite (if that is what it was).
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Chris Harrison

Thanks for the info so far, I've also remembered something else. There were what appeared to be 2 sets of puncture marks on my leg both in different places.

If I am not mistaken you also have Vipera Ursinii in Bulgaria.