The gaboon has it hands down. Compare it to stepping on a 1.5" nail, as opposed to jumping into a big heavily thorned rose bush. Yeah they both hurt alot, but which one should you worry about more.
I do not want to know what those fangs feel like sinking deep into my arm/hand, but nor do I want to feel the big teeth of a retic again. Burms cannot even be used as a comparison.
I have taken the big constrictor hits from large Burms, Anancondas, and Retics. Burms and anacondas are not that bad(comparitively), stay calm ,dont pull, dump some very warm water on their mouth and you get a nice set of teeth marks and bruising. A retic is different and the only one I feel worth comparison when it comes to deep tissue damage. They will pull back, their tooth is much longer then other big costrictors, the back edge is sharp, will slice and they know it. As such the bite is drastically different. I lost part of extension capability in my finger after a retic partially severed the tendons in the back of my hand when I was bitten several years back.
Short of big retics and scrubs, I doubt much else could come close to inflicting a puncturing bite that would allow the deep tissue damage and potential for infection of a fanged bite. Every bit of bacteria on them is pushed deep into the muslce/tissue where it cannot be washed or scrubbed out. Two fangs which used to have venom pushed thru them occassionally and as such were kept "clean" now only serve as bacteria receptacles as well. Most bites from venomous snake have little bleeding due to the nature of puntures. Typically all constrictor bites bleed like mad and as a result flush the wound naturally.
The infection is the most potential threat in a venomoid fanged bite. Not the tendon severing, nerve damage, possible artery cut, or bruising.
Notah

An argument on venomoid elapid bites would be much harder to defend against constrictors though.

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]