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Neonates more dangerous/toxic than adults?
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by YoungHerp1 on January 16, 2007
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Hey everyone, ive been reading, seeing and hearing alot about neonate hotts. Ive heard that the neonates are more toxic and is at the most dangerous. I know they are dangerous to handle due to there smaller size. But the venom? I can see MAYBE they cant control the amount of venomon the deliver. And plus they hold a much smaller amount of venom in thier glands. I dont know if they produce it faster than adults or not. This is a question i wanted to get opinions on. The amount of reading, watching and listening i do, i realy never hear about this.
I just watched "Dirty Jobs" on discover channel,(love that show lol) and he went looking for golf balls in a shallow, but wide dirty pond in a golf coarse. He picked up a baby cotton mouth in a bunch of mud. He held it for a second the gently put it down. At the end of that segment he said that " the babies are more dangerous that the adults.
Any thoughts would help. and well appriciated.
Thanks alot
MIke
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RE: Neonates more dangerous/toxic than adults?
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by LarryDFishel on January 16, 2007
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Well, certainly a baby cottonmouth would be more dangerous than the banded water snake he called a cotton...
I don't know that anyone has done any serious research on it. I've heard conflicting opinions on whether or not the venom of a neonate is more toxic, per milligram, but unless it's 100 times more toxic than an adult, it's not likely to be more dangerous. (Volume is proportional to length CUBED.)
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RE: Neonates more dangerous/toxic than adults?
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by GREGLONGHURST on January 16, 2007
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A large adult snake in its prime is considerably more dangerous than a young snake. Young snakes are dangerous, but the quantity produced by a larger snake makes them more so. Some species of Crotalus are potentially lethal from the moment they are born. This is due to the venom being particularly virulent, as in
scutulatus or helleri, or the young being large enough to have a lethal quantity of venom, as in adamanteus & perhaps atrox.
~~Greg~~
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RE: Neonates more dangerous/toxic than adults?
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by jared on January 16, 2007
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I agree with greg. Venom varies among the same ssp from different localities and can change through deveopment based on prey species. The amount any adult can give you will usually supersede the toxicity of most neonates. An adult gaboon or king has enough volume to hardly consider varitions in toxicity.
Jared
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RE: Neonates more dangerous/toxic than adults?
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by Cro on January 16, 2007
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Mike, this is a very interesting topic. We have all heard the saying that young snakes are more dangerous than adults.
It could be true that young snakes do not have as much of an ability to control how much venom they use for a given situation. Perhaps this is a learned behavior. If that is the case, the young snake might use all of its available venom the first time it runs into a threating situation because it knows no better. But, we also have to remember that a small snake has much shorter fangs, and is going to deliver venom into more surface tissues than a large venomous snake.
If snakes have the ability to learn, then an adult snake might think, well, this is a small mouse, so I will only use this much venom. And it might think this is a serious threat, so I will use a lot of venom. But we do not know if they do this or not. I believe this is mostly speculation on the part of humans.
If the venom is the same, drop for drop, then a large snake has much more potential dangerousness. The neonate might deliver 2 drops of venom but the adult might deliver 120 drops of venom. Even if the venom of the young snake is stronger, the huge amount of venom of the adult will cause more problems.
Perhaps some young snakes have venom that is "tweaked" to be more toxic, because they prey on lizards and amphibians when young, and perhaps the venom changes over time as the snake starts to prey on larger animals like mice and rats. This could make for a wierd bite that is not fully neutrulized by normal anti-venoms.
Overall, I think a larger snake is more dangerous, because of the large venom yield, and will continue to think the same until I see reasearch otherwise.
It is kind of like saying is it better to be run over by a bicycle or a semi-truck. Perhaps the cycle has a higher initial speed, but more likely, the semi-truck is going to do more damage.
Best Regards JohnZ
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RE: Neonates more dangerous/toxic than adults?
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by Crotalusssp on January 17, 2007
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Young snakes are many times more likely to deliver a "wet" bite, nearly 100% of the time. Adults, depending upon spp. only deliver "wet" bites 30-70% of the time. Adults contain and can deliver much more venom that any neonate. It is this reason that adults are much more dangerous to be bitten by. As for the reason young deliver wet bites everytime, I have heard conflicting ideas from lack of muscle control to need to defend itself more vigorously as a baby. Babies are much more susceptable to predatory attack, so the later makes more sense to me. Snakes are born very well developed and I believe any muscle control differences would only last days at the most. This is an interesting topic of general public misunderstanding.
Charles
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