Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This was shared in the Veterinary Information Network; I've only read this abstract that I'm sharing with you

http://www.vin.com/WebLink.plx?URL=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16292255&query_hl=17

Ian

the monitor forum around November 12th, 05. BGF really has a fun career... and if he's reading this, fine dissections indeed
Ian

I too saw the uproar in the monitor forum a while back and it amazes me what people's perception of venom is.

Many times when people are informed of research like this they respond by giving their own analysis of a bite and the lack of "venom-like" effects. I am not sure exactly what science wants to include for a compound of proteins and enzymes to be venom but I have no clue why the reaction one somewhat large mammal species has needs to be included. If the animal is not eating humans or is not regularly being directly threatened by humans....what possible need for human response to their venom is there.

Another thing constantly brought up is the toxicity of human saliva. People automatically think since we have evidence which allows us to "technically" call bearded dragons venomous...we can therefore call humans venomous because they have toxic saliva (as well).

What is often missed are the elements which make these animals toxic. Human saliva does not have for example...neurotoxins. The toxins our lovely herps have which makes it venom includes proteins which serve a direct purpose to target an area of a body and serve to shut it down. The specific purpose these proteins and enzymes serve is to aid in subduing the prey. Yes, there are degestive qualities in both saliva and venom but the action of specifically targeting a system in an animals body to aid in capture is both lacking of human saliva and important in venom. At least this is what my simple mind sees.

Another thing which I saw quite a bit was fear in legislation because of this research. People fear if they accept this research then legislators will consider a bearded dragon as venomous and therefore harmful. Fear of our government should certainly not be a reason to further our knowledge of an animal. This seems like it should be a change in how we govern...not what we research. Besides...polititians are human too and capable of understanding relative danger. I noticed Dr. Fry made an attempt to assure these findings make no impact on the relative danger to humans.

I think these new findings are "very cool." People really should take it for what it’s worth and quit looking at things which do not matter. We knew colubrids had these glands a long time ago. When the name duvernoys gland was used more people were ok with it because it was just "toxic properties in their saliva". When more information on the specific actions these "properties" serve was put out into the open...some people literally got angry or upset.

Am I missing something?

We found the venom glands in many colubrids are capable of more than we thought and lizards have similar glands...how is this controversial?

I guess many people do not want to look at things differently than how they learned them the first time. This is why many people cannot stand taxonomists. But if we never found new evidence which made us look at things differently then we would not cure any diseases. I think we are a little behind on curing diseases anyway. Since Polio I have a hard time thinking of big diseases which were cured.

These are my thoughts on the topic. Thank you Ian for bringing it up again because I want to hear more cool stuff about it and I didn't want to be blamed for any chaos like the monitor forum had. I would hate to see such neat information be pushed out of forums because it is viewed like the venomoid issue.

Sorry for adding more than my humble thoughts on this. If my perception of this is off please correct me. I am young and far from understanding the complexities of venom. This is just what I see and nobody has directed me to any other light.

Then the drug industry would topple over on it's back... Not trying to be a conspriracy theorist or anything of that nature but come on... The sciences,technology,and other assorted things we have and we can't find a cure for things. This is the new millenium and people need to act like it. God forbid the drug industry falling down and not making billions each year and instead just making millions due to new cures. Everytime on a local channel you see commercials like,"YOU NEED this drug,if you are fat,overweight or sad this drug WILL solve your problems"...Is that what they say directly? No...But in the most basic sense they are drug dealers on a wider margin than some urban youth kids selling drugs. This is irrelevant to your post eunectes4 and to the topic just had to give my 2 cents.... And I agree with you 100% by the way about the saliva/venom thing.

I almost brought that aspect up actually but it did not really relate to lizard venom. I mention this all the time when I bring up the toad with anti HIV properties. What will happen with it? They make so much treating diseases.

But I did see some good hope when I was at RUSH in chicago. I was told I can count on a cure of a disease I just found out I have. I was assured I can expect a cure in the next 8 years actually. While its nothing like AIDS or cancer...it can be kind of debilitating and it would be nice to see a cure.

Glad you think the same way I do, I hope you get what you wan't. Life throughs you down like a horse but you gotta get back up and not stay down. I hope you get that cure and god bless you brother. Take care.

Good thinking. Which is to say, I suppose, I agree with you. None of us operate directly on our environment, instead we build and rely on models which help us get along. Science generally, and especially Taxonomy are disiplines that translate the experince of our enviroment into models of the "way things are". They are always approximations.
When science reconstructs a model (as in the the current matter) there is bound to be resistance. The scientifically-minded has to put the natural reluctance to the paradigim shift aside and ask "does this new model make more sense" than the old way of conceptualizing the same phenomenum. And in this instance, it does to me. I too think its cool! Bravo, Dr. Fry!

Our young minds work very much alike eunectes, I was drawn aback at the recoil to what I thought was intriguing research. All the tangents that were discussed really ignored any drive to learn more... funny, since I know this lack of intuition doesn't extend into their husbandry as one guru on the monitor forum has really advanced monitor care.

Ian
ps I havn't seen you around lately, were you on that costa rica trip? Did you get the newsletter I sent you?

so i bet pretty much everything is 'venomous' right?....just in varying degrees?....as far as we know?....for now?

I wouldn't go that far. I'm sure Dr. Fry's looked pretty hard at a lot of species to find nothing. The new information does expand what we previously thought was correct by a rather large margin, but relating this to the goal of the work, is that animals divergent prior to the evolution of venom would indeed not be venomous. This would mean that it would still be very ground breaking to find venom in a crocodilian, chelonian, or many of the other lizard families.

Ian

The uproar on the monitor forum was a result of most of the brain power being chased away by “the ruler” of that forum, who is most insulting to anyone that might appear to be an academic or appears to have an independent thought that does not conform to certain people’s dogma on that forum.

That being said, there is no uproar on a certain monitor forum from the Netherlands, where more of the intellectual and academic monitor herpetologists, enthusiasts and keepers have taken refuge from being insulted or having their posts deleted for daring to think. You will find only interest in the report from those who actually read it, instead of the reaction like those on the monitor forum here who did not read it and if they did read it, probably would not have understood what it was about anyway.

For the few of us who were not and will not be chased away, we know exactly who Dr. Fry is and this report only confirmed what many believed already and proved the existence and composition of the venom to the ones that had doubts with the compelling evidence. Unfortunately, I am one that thinks that US legislators will have their typical knee jerk reaction and now classify Varanus and Iguanids (Iguanidae and Agamidae) as venomous, placing all the inappropriate restrictions on them as they do other venomous creatures.

One of the things I like most about this forum is that there are many serious herpetologists, keepers and no shortage of brain power, which is probably attributed to the progression that takes place before even working with venomous snakes. A novice is that last one that should be working with venomous snakes and therefore probably would not visit this forum too often.

Please do not place all of us interested in monitors in the same category as the mental midgets that would argue with Dr. Fry without even reading his report first! There are many that have nothing but praise for that paper he and that team had assembled.

Michael