I was just reading about the garter snake; long thought to be nonvenomous, it was recently (I do not know how long ago) found to have mild venom, not harmful to humans. This interesting factoid made me wonder – how many other animals, say like in the last thirty years or so, have been found to be venomous?
Apparently all snakes are venomous to a greater or lesser degree.
I think having venom is now believed to be a primitive characteristic of all lizards, including the subclade which are snakes.
I saw this link and immediately thought that Komodo Dragons don’t have venom, they have dirty mouths that act kinda like venom, and that’s been known for more than 30 years (I learned it when I was a kid).
Then I read your link and discovered that what I had read was completely wrong, and was only discovered to be wrong in 2009.
Wow!
Thanks for the link.
Since the OP didn’t specify “living animals”, let me add Euchambersia. Was thought to be venomous, then not, and this year, confirmed to be venomous (oldest venomous land animal, in fact).
I think all spiders are venomous,too.
That’s been known since forever, not discovered in the past 30 years.
To forestall a pedantic nitpick, there are some that claim that “poisonous” applies only to plants or animals that have toxic compounds in their tissues, while “venomous” should be restricted to animals that inject toxic compounds. I’ve never found a basis for the former technical distinction. “Poisonous” can be applied to both organisms that are themselves toxic, and those that inject venom. “Poisonous snake” is a perfectly valid description.
In present usage, however, “venomous” is usually restricted to organisms that inject toxins. One would not speak of a “venomous plant,” for example. However, there is precedent for a broader use; Shakespeare spoke of the “venomous toad.” But that use today is somewhat archaic.
According to this, birds like the pitohoui would typically be called poisonous rather than venomous.
Venomous animals are dangerous if they bite you, poisonous animals are dangerous if you bite them.
As I said, that’s not true. It’s perfectly correct to refer to snakes as being poisonous as well as venomous.
Wow! That’s pretty neat!
Fascinating!
Yes it is. It’s an artificial distinction not supported by dictionaries. There’s no real scientific basis for it. It’s one of those bogus distinctions like the assertion that only members of the Hemiptera can be referred to as “bugs,”
Merriam Webster.
Collins English Dictionary.
Cambridge English Dictionary
MacMillan Dictionary
Bolding mine.
Male platypuses are venomous. I seem to recall that that fact was relatively recently discovered (like in the 90s).
What about nettles?
To borrow a quote from another recent thread, that is why we don’t let dictionary editors teach science classes.
Okay, I was wondering how long we had known about that.