THE INDEPENDENT (Johannesburg, S Africa) 27 February 07 Snakes alive!

Sao Paulo (AFP): The fangs on the rattler held by the white-coated scientist looked like they could puncture a book: long and curving, and dripping venom.

Luckily for Savio Stefanini Sant'anna, from Sao Paulo's Butantan Institute, the snake was somnolent, gassed into submission by a dip in a canister filled with carbon dioxide.

Its yellow viscous toxin was being dripped into a beaker by a reflex action triggered by the firm press of its open mouth on the rim.

Around Stefanini and his co-worker, in boxes lined along the walls, was an angry chatter from the tails of dozens of other rattlesnakes waiting their turn to be "milked".

The 100-year-old government-funded facility, on the edge of the sprawling University of Sao Paulo campus, counts the biggest collection of serpents in the world.

While it has a sideline activity as a tourist attraction in Brazil's biggest city, its main role is research.

One part handles vaccine production - and the other explores the medical properties of venom from snakes, spiders and other critters found throughout the South American country.

Researchers for drug companies and universities from various nations come calling to examine ways to turn the normally mortal molecules into powerful painkillers.

The Brazilian workers also harvest the toxins to turn them into antivenin, for the thousands of humans who fall victim to snake bites in Brazil each year.

Many of the legless reptiles are alive in various tanks and displays and wooden boxes where they writhe or sleep or devour tiny, hairless mice that are bred as snake food.

Another 75 000 are coiled lifeless into alcohol-filled jars in a vast storage room, a repertoire of biological information on South American serpents.

For the curator of the collection, Francisco Luis Franco, being surrounded by snakes is a dream job.

"I've always been fascinated by them, so I'm working exactly where I want to be. It's wonderful," he said.

While most people feel fear upon encountering a snake, Franco sees only an opportunity to get up close and personal with the critters - including rarities on the brink of extinction because of human encroachment on their habitats.

"The rarest specimens we have are four Corallus cropanii, a type of boa found only in Sao Paulo state," he said. Almost nothing is known about the snake, which the curator said was "very certainly" in danger of disappearing.

Most of the snakes at the institute are dropped off by members of the public who have come across them on their properties or in the nature. A few come from field expeditions by scientists.

As a result, a fairly common rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus terrificus) features prominently, and is used extensively for venom milking.

Stefanini, a 41-year-old scientist who has worked at the Butantan Institute for 18 years, said a painkiller derived from the snake's poison is proving more powerful than morphine, and soon might be marketed after further testing.

The staff in the center work quickly but competently with wooden sticks, putting agitated snakes in holding buckets while their boxes are cleaned and their mice-food and water are readied.

Although the snakes's neurotoxins can kill a human - generally by causing renal failure - Stefanini said accidents are uncommon.

"There's one only every two years or so," he said, taking another serpent out to weigh it and baring its fangs with forceps before extracting more venom for the chilled beaker.

And has he ever been bitten?

"Just once, during a field trip in 2003. A jararaca (a type of South American pit viper) bit my finger. We had antivenin, and I was taken to hospital for a 24-hour stay. My right arm swelled up and it was six months before I could close that hand without using force," he said, smiling.

Outside, visitors were watching a few serpents in an enclosed habitat. In the midday sun, they were not doing very much. Other people walked through a gallery lined with other live specimens, including an anaconda lazily digesting its bulging rabbit dinner.

For seven-year-old Arthur de Araujo Catto, walking next to his father, the animals were "great - really pretty".

He knew they were dangerous, but only in an abstract way.

The vast sprawl of Sao Paulo meant he had never seen a snake in the wild, because not a lot of "wild" was left in the city.

But if he ever did later on, and if he had the misfortune to be bitten, he could thank the institute's work for greatly increasing the odds that he would live to tell the tale.
Snakes alive!

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