Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all I wanted to know if these are a good first "hot" snake. Can these even be considered hots? I heard they are rear fanged and have venom but there have been no reports of human fatalities. Is there venom potent? Can they send you to the hospital? I'm asking this because I want one but I dont have any hots and dont plan to. It's just that this snake looks beautiful and would be nice for a first and ONLY venemous snake. Thanks in advance. Heres some pic's of these beauties.
Jayson

This is the classic venomous but not dangerous snake. I have had some strike at me but never any try to chew. Frankly to list them as venomous ids ridiculous as most are passive (IME).

Sever w/c I have had have been bears to get to feed. but once established they are a hardy, good natured snake.

Allways love them...

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

>>Hello all I wanted to know if these are a good first "hot" snake. Can these even be considered hots? I heard they are rear fanged and have venom but there have been no reports of human fatalities. Is there venom potent? Can they send you to the hospital? I'm asking this because I want one but I dont have any hots and dont plan to. It's just that this snake looks beautiful and would be nice for a first and ONLY venemous snake. Thanks in advance. Heres some pic's of these beauties.
>>Jayson
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What you need to keep in mind is that while most colubrine snakes, which are species in the Colubridae family (e.g. racers, ratsnakes, lyre snakes, Boiga etc.), have venom that is drop for drop as toxic as pretty much any elapid venom (link to one of our papers is below), the yield is much much smaller and the delivery vastly less efficient. This is all fine and good from the snakes perpective since most of these species feed on soft-skinned, non-dangerous prey items. The venoms are rich in neurotoxic 3FTx (three finger toxins) which are biochemically unique in the reptile toxin world. These toxins are just as potent whether just under the skin, deep into the muscle or even straight into a vein. This is in contrast to most other toxin types which can be a vastly more toxic the deeper into the tissue it goes or straight into the blood stream. So they only need a little bit of venom just under the skin to do the job on a gecko or frog.

Therefore, while lyre snakes have very potent venom, they don't have appreciable amounts of it and aren't able to delivery it quickly. So from a human perpective they are of only mild risk. Like many other rearfangs, they can be completely safely worked with just long sleeve shirts and light gardening gloves.

Cheers
Bryan
Colubrid neurotoxicity

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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
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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

Thankyou both very very much, now to find a lyresnake breeder lol. Why are these snakes ignored by the herpetocultural community? They have brilliant coloring and almost mimick that of rattle snakes IMO. Thanks for clearing it up for me though If I ever get a hold of one I would be very happy. The captive born are more than willing to eat rodents and they are just an Underated snake. I also heard that they had some sort of venom, not neurotoxic (sp?) or hemotoxic, but the root word for it was hemo, I could be wrong though. Good thing they aren't in the "hots" catergory as I would have liked to think lol.

Hard to tell but they look like nice ones, are they cb? They also look like two different ssp. let us know how they do.
Cheers
B