I was watching a TV show and the poisonous snake bit someone and the others killed it. The warder in the prison takes the dead snake and throws it in the rubbish bin.
Then one of the inmates she goes and gets it out of the rubbish bin an puts it in a cell as a joke.
My question is could a dead poisonous snake still cause problems. I mean it couldn’t bit anyone to inject any venom so if it could be dangerous still, how so?
Yes, absolutely. The venom is still there and anything that causes an injection is similar to a live snake bite. Reflex bites have been reported even from severed heads and there are other ways to transmit the venom like stepping on the head or being stabbed by the fangs. Newly dead snakes sometimes move around by reflex on their own.
Reptiles are capable of a surprising amount of movement after they’re dead, so yes, reflex bites can and do occur. And if someone sat down onto the open mouth of a dead venomous snake, there would be quite a risk that they’d get a puncture wound from still-venomous fangs.
I can understand reflex bites, but aren’t fangs typically folded back into the mouth - at least for vipers? That should make stepping/sitting on them rather difficult.
IIRC, The venom oxidizes fairly quickly after exposure to air, and decays fairly quickly too, but I’d expect the venom to be dangerous for a couple days afterwards, at least.
Just to be pedantic, the snake in question is venomous, not poisonous.
A point worth making, Telemark, not pedantic in the least.
Anecdotally, I’ve shot a water moccasin several times, cut off its head, thown it in a hot trunk and the next day while skinning it observed the heart still beating. Now it obviously wasn’t still alive but it does speak to the fact their nerves/reflexes can still have some activity for prolonged periods. (Psssst… hey, Crotalus.)
I once saw a rattlesnake that someone had beheaded. It’s headless neck would twist around in attempt to bite you if you touched it on the tail. This was hours after it had been killed. Creepy.
I have seen Bear Grylls kill venemous snakes for food on “Man vs Wild” and he has always made a point out of burying the head, as it can still reflexively bite and pose a danger.