Was checking out my nephew’s highschool health textbook and in the section on first aid it had what to do about a snakebite. Most of the info was pretty standard, but they had a line in there that I hadn’t seen before. Something like “Because snakes are cold-blooded, their venom is more dangerous when it is cold.”
Say what? The sentence, as written, indicates that cold weather works with the cold-blooded system of the snake to make its poison more toxic. I could understand an increased concentration of the poison due to the snake not having been hunting in the cold or that human physiology in colder temps might make the poison dangerous. But cold weather + cold-blood = increased toxicity? Warm weather + cold-blood = decreased toxicity?
The questions raised:
Are snakebites more dangerous in cold weather? How and why?
Does the poison of cold-blooded animals increase in toxicity during cold weather due to a biological mechanism related to the fact of the creature being cold-blooded and the weather being cooler? How and why?
I’ve never heard anything like that before. It makes absolutely no sense to me for any reason.
I think perhaps they may have meant snakes are more dnagerous when they are cold. Theer are a lot more accidental (as opposed to suicide) snakebites in winter/spring around here because the snakes tend to lie in open areas like pathways sunning themselves, and being cold they’re less inclinded to flee when they hear people coming.
IMHO I doubt that cold weather makes the venom of snakes more dangerous. As to whether snakes are more dangerous, I know they are not since in cold weather they go underground and are hibernating. It is probably possible for someone to pick them up without harm, during this time. MO is that whoever wrote that did not really understand the term cold-blooded as applied to snakes and was thinking about it as used for serial killers.
Thanks guys. I agree with you. I can see a snake being more dangerous in the cold for a variety of reasons, but the poison being more dangerous just seemed a strange premise.
I live in the tropics, you know that place where 80% of the world’s snakes live. Snakes here definitely do not hibernate. In fact nothing here hibernates. ie most of the snakes in the world don’t hibernate. Stating that you know snakes are not dangerous in cold weather because they are all underground hibernating is one of the most dangerous and irresponsible peices of advice I’ve seen for a while.
Thinking in egocentric terms is definitely not good.
Could it be that because of the cold weather, our bodies might be working against us in event of a venomous snake bite? Colder temperatures, blood flows to the skin surface, trying to keep us warm, usualy we shiver, trying to maintian heat. In doing this, the venom distributes in our blood stream more rapidly than it would during normal weather conditions. I had also heard that being bitten by a young or baby rattlesnake was more dangerous than an adult because the young one wouldn’t have the experience to save some of the venom used in defense for a meal later. Could a snake just awoken from hibernation have a surplus of venom stored, therefore inject more as a defense? (I’m doing web seaches now, but not coming up with much, aside from first aid recomending no exercise and some snake general info sites.)
Doesn’t sound right to me either. Shooting from the hip, I’d say, when cold, a humans blood moves away from the extremities to keep the body core constant to avoid hypothermia. Fingers and skin act as cooling ‘fins’ as it were.
The contact with snakes might be higher when cold due to them laying out (to sun) where they might not usually be, but I can tell you from experience that reptiles also move considerably slower when cold, thus, it would seem to me, reducing your chance of being bitten.
I doubt that cold would affect the enzymes effectiveness on human tissue.
Maybe it is because inactive snakes in cooler weather are not constantly using their venom for hunting; hence their stores of high quality potent venom are possibly larger.
A snake at the height of summer is also at the most active phase of its existence; hence it will be hunting and eating more. Therefore there is a greater chance of a snake having a depleted venom reserve in the event of an attack.
Any herpatologists out there who can tell me whether I’m right or wrong?
DVous Means, I think your speculation makes some sense. Like the others, I can’t see that the venom itself would be more toxic in cold weather. Venom contains various enzymes, and their activity is going to affected more by the temperature of the body into which they are injected than the temperature of the snake itself.
However, I would guess that a temperate-zone snake roused directly from hibernation is more likely to have its venom sacs full than one that has been hunting and feeding, and thus its bite would potentially be more dangerous.
I agree with the OP, though, that as written the "factoid’ doesn’t make much sense.
It is also the home of the 10 most poisonous snakes and the “Crocodile Hunter”. You say you are in the tropics, which is probably the Northern Territory or Queensland. Have you ever been south to the more temperate zones during cold weather? The OP was talking about snake venom in cold weather, since the snakes that live in the tropics are not being exposed to cold weather, then it does not matter what percent they represent. What is being discussed are the snakes that live where it gets cold.
Well, I remember being taught about snake habits in the U.S. Marine Corps as part of survival courses. Included was the fact that snakes hibernate. However, before posting I checked with Google, where there is plenty of information.
Did you know that here in the States, we have rattlesnake roundups in six states? In recent years there has been opposition to these, but they still are very popular. Guess what time of the year they are run and why that time is picked. Look here: http://www.kingsnake.com/roundup/
I don’t understand how anything I said was egocentric. If you mean that I said that snakes hibernate here, when they don’t in tropical Australia, that isn’t true. I was talking about areas where it gets cold. I’m sure that somewhere in the world other than the U.S. there is a place where poisonous snakes hibernate in cold weather. You seem to think that the OP was just concerning snakes in the tropics of Australia so if I were to be mean spirited I might be tempted to turn it around and say you are looking at it soley as it applies to Australia’s tropical regions.
Kniz how cold is cold? IS -10 degrees cold? It gets down to that here, the snakes still don’t hibernate. To suggest that snakes in the tropics aren’t exposed to cold weather is exactly what I meant about ego-centric thinking.
You stated that you knew for a fact that snakes are underground hibernating in winter and that a person could probably handle them. That is a very dangerous untruth, and for most of the world’s population avoiding sensible precautions because they know that all snakes are underground hibernating in winter is dangerous. Those two staements are are simply not true for the majority of the world’s snakes. That’s what I meant about ego-centric thinking.
I have no way of knowing where the OP lives. The important point is that Kniz’s statement that all snakes are underground hiberanting in winter is not even close to being true. Do not believe it. Believing that particular myth will likely get you killed in most parts of the world.