“The “fierce snake” is probably just a variant name for one of the taipan species, made up by the folks producing the TV show. There is no such snake name in use anywhere in the world.”
That is incorrect. Whilst the fierce snake is also know as the inland and western taipan, it is quite commonly referred to as the fierce snake, which tends to differentiate it from the coastal taipan. You should research these things before stating them as fact - suggesting it was made up by a TV producer is rather poor!
Rob Bredl - the TV herpetologist whom I respect most - refers to it as a “fiercesnake”, and this guy is for real. Not the the type at all to make up a name for a snake to sound cool on TV.
With an LD50 of 80 ug/kg (ipr-crayfish) it would be fairly close.
“C. quadrigatus toxin-A (CqTX-A, 44 kDa), a major proteinaceous toxin, for the first time, from the nematocysts of C. quadrigatus. CqTX-A showed lethal toxicity to crayfish when administered via intraperitoneal injection (LD50 = 80 microg/kg)” ref
I think the researchers here used an invertebrate to avoid hassles with animal ethics approval.
As I understand it, Clostridium botulinum produces its neurotoxin as a waste product during growth. If you ate a buch of dead organisims that had been washed, would they be full of the neurotoxin?
I was thinking that it would probably be one of the South American tree frogs and I know that some nudibranchs are poisionous but I don’t know to what degree.
These frogs obtain the toxins from plant material and concentrate them in their body. A poison arrow frog loses is toxicity with a few months of captivity.
