This image: From IMSI's MasterClips/MasterPhotos 202,000 © 1997 Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506 , USA
SNAKES
–
BELIEFS and FACTS
B Stett
(Investigator
115, 2007 July)
MYTH
AND TRUTH
The Roman writer Pliny the
Elder wrote some
fascinating stories:
Crates [a poet] of
Pergamum states that
there was a race of men…on the Hellespont, whom he calls Ophiogenes;
they
used to cure snake-bites by touch and extract the venom from the body
by
placing their hands on its surface. Varro writes that even now there
are
a few people in that region whose saliva is an antidote to snake-bites.
That's
interesting Pliny;
tell us another one:
There is a similar tribe
in Africa… They
produce in their bodies a poison deadly to snakes, and its odour puts
snakes
to sleep. Their custom was to expose children at birth to extremely
fierce
snakes and to use these snakes to test the faithfulness of their wives
since snakes do not flee people born of adulterous blood… (Healy 1991,
pp 76-77)
Outside of textbooks a
lot of
myth is associated
with snakes:
- There are no
snakes that suck cows' teats to
drink the milk.
- No species of
snake will wrap itself around
your leg and whip you with its tail.
- There are no
"hoop snakes" that hold their tail
by the mouth, form a round hoop, and roll downhill. Mud snakes of
south-east
USA are supposed to do this. They grow up to two metres long – long
enough
for a hoop – live in fresh water swamps and catch fish. But they do not
roll – that part is myth.
- Snakes do not
travel in pairs.
- If a snake's
head
is cut off it will not live
on until sundown.
Less mythical is global
warming. Priede
(1990) asked: "Will global warming bring the world's most poisonous
snakes
to Britain's shores?" He explained:
Sea snakes are the most
abundant reptiles
on Earth. More venomous than cobras and capable of spending three hours
under water at a stretch, they are superbly adapted to life in the warm
seas. With the onset of global warming, they could find their habitat
expanding.
CLASSIFICATION
Snakes are reptiles of
which there are five
groups:
- Testudines
Tortoises and turtles;
- Crocodylia
Crocodiles, caymans and alligators;
- Rhynchocephalia
Tuataras;
- Saurians
Lizards;
- Serpentes
Snakes.
There are
about 3,000
species of snake
(in 390 genera) of which 200 species are dangerous.
FEAR
Is fear of snakes learned
or instinctive?
Mathewson (1960) writes:
Babies and young
children who have never
been shown or told that they should fear reptiles rarely have a
"natural"
fear of them. When a small colorful snake or lizard, or even a turtle
or
alligator, is offered to a child who has never been taught to fear
these
animals, the child almost always reaches out for the reptile…
Many adults
claim that
they were never warned
against reptiles, but that they have an instinctive terror of them. It
is indeed probable that if we could see back into their early youth, we
would find that something or someone gave these people the fear they
now
have. (p6)
Adult monkeys
show
fear of
snakes but baby monkeys
don't:
…baby monkeys
that had
never been near
a snake showed no fear when offered one. Later the same babies were put
in a cage with adult monkeys. The adults became excited when a reptile
was brought near the cage, and from then on the baby monkeys showed
fear.
(p7)
POISONOUS
The most
dangerous snake
country is Sri Lanka
where 800 people die from snakebite annually.
The way to tell
a
poisonous snake is by its
fangs.
You won't detect
a
copperhead (or other poisonous
snake) by its cucumber-like odour as used to be believed. Cucumbers are
not very odiferous – when's the last time anyone said to you "I smell
cucumbers?"
The snake's
color does not
indicate safety
or danger. Green snakes are supposed to be venomous. Yes, some are but
others aren't.
Harmless snakes
supposedly
have round pupils
and poisonous snakes elliptical pupils (like a cat). However, this too
is false. All the cobras of India and Africa have round pupils – but if
one bites you and injects its poison you might as well say your prayers.
Nor can you tell
a
poisonous snake by its
triangular-shaped head. The coral snake of the USA, the king cobra of
Malaya,
and the black mamba of Africa have blunt heads but are very dangerous.
A common myth
was that the
snake's tongue
is poisonous. However, the snake's tongue is a taste organ and tastes
the
air.
Snakes inject
poison by a
pair of hollow
fangs connected by ducts to poison glands at the sides of the head. The
snake has to bite and stick its fangs into your flesh to inject its
poison.
Rattlesnakes,
copperheads
and many vipers
have a poison called a haemotoxin, which affects the victim's blood.
Other
snakes, such as cobras, Australian tiger snakes and coral snakes have
neurotoxins
which affect the nervous system.
The African
spitting cobra
spits venom and
aims for the victim's eyes. If the eyes are rubbed blindness may
follow.
It can also inject venom by biting.
In Africa the
most
dangerous viper is the
puff adder, Bitis arientans, said to kill about 4,000 people
per
year. Clark (1969) says:
A number of its
African
victims die of
fright or shock even in cases where the dose of venom was insufficient
to kill them. Panic stricken African victims have been found trying to
drink milk from a cow's teats because they believe it helps neutralize
the venom while others have been found running until they drop because
again they think that that helps. (p129)
HOW
BIG?
Perhaps you've seen the
movie Anaconda
(1997) where Jon Voight got swallowed and later coughed up!
Pliny the Elder writes:
…in India snakes grow to
such a size as
to be able to swallow whole stags and bulls…
That's a
good one Pliny; what
else do you know?
There is a well-known
story of the snake
120-feet long that was killed in the River Bagradas during the Punic
Wars
by the Roman general Regulus: he used catapults and ballistae as if he
were storming a town. Its skin and jaw-bones remained in a temple in
Rome
right down to the Numantine War. (pp 113-114)
The Guinness Book of
Records says:
"The reticulated python (Python Reticulatus)…regularly exceeds
6.24
metres (20 ft 6 in) in length."
Clark (1969) cites
evidence that the four
largest specimens observed, of the four largest species are:
- The regal
python (Python
reticulatus),
of India and Malaysia –
33 feet;
- The anaconda
of
South America – 25 feet;
- The Indian
rock
python, Python molurus – 25
feet;
- The African
python, Python sebae – 20 feet.
Clark says:
There are men who
emerged from the South
American jungles with stories of anacondas 40 feet long. Some even
claimed
100 feet… Then a few years ago the New York Zoological Society offered
$5,000 for the first 30 foot specimen. The prize has yet to be claimed
and the stories of giant anacondas have died down. The fact remains
that
the biggest anaconda, Eunectes murinus, ever collected was 19
feet
in length, 3 feet in girth and weighed 236 lbs. There is one reliable
record
of a 25 foot specimen but that, for the time being is the biggest…
(p118)
Pythons and boa
constrictors kill large prey
by suffocation through constriction – the snake tightens its coils each
time the victim breathes out. Again there are few reliable reports of
this
happening to adult humans, although a 15-foot snake or bigger might
succeed
if it pins both of the person's arms to his sides. If the human has one
arm free he can uncoil the python starting from the tail.
MYTH
and RELIGION
Many cultures considered
snakes immortal
– perhaps because they regularly grow a new skin and shed the old skin.
The Hopi people of North
America had an annual
snake dance during which they handled live snakes, which were then
released,
to ensure rain and good crops.
In India the creator,
Brahma, slept on the
coils of a giant snake which caused earthquakes whenever it opened its
jaws. In an ancient Greek myth the snake Ophion incubated the egg from
which all created life emerged. Solomon Islanders have a number of
snake-shaped
creator-gods. In Mexico the snake-god Quetzalcoatl was the creator of
life
In some myths snakes guard
the Underworld.
In India human-headed snakes called nagas and naginis
inhabit
underground paradises. Legends of North American Indians tell of
human-snake
marriages whose offspring could venture between the two worlds.
Does Pliny have a comment
to add? Yes:
The basilisk [a snake]
is found in Cyrenaica
and is not more than a foot in length… It destroys bushes not only by
its
touch but also by its breath, and it burns grass and splits rocks.
(p117)
TREE
SNAKES
The talking snake that
deceived Eve in the
Bible (Genesis 3) is usually depicted on a tree.
Harvey Lillywhite (1988)
wondered why snakes
positioned vertically in trees don't faint since in other animals blood
tends to follow gravity:
As blood pools in the
lower body, central
blood pressure falls and circulation to critical organs, such as the
brain,
eventually fails.
Mammals have
valves in their
veins to prevent
backward flow of blood – but snakes don't have such valves. Therefore
snakes
on land ought to be restricted to horizontal habits – which, however,
is
not the case.
Lillywhite experimented by
placing various
snakes in vertical and horizontal orientations and measured their
arterial
blood pressure.
He found that
tree-climbing snakes have a
different cardiovascular system than ground and sea snakes. Their heart
is closer to the head, the body is more slender, muscle tone firmer,
the
tail-end narrower, and the skin tighter. These features resist
stretching
from blood pooling:
Arboreal snakes that
have been climbing
for a while often pause momentarily to wiggle their bodies, causing
undulating
waves of muscle contraction that advance from the lower torso to the
head.
The advancing contractions compress the veins, forcing blood forward
and
increasing central venous pressure near the heart. The behavior
improves
venous blood flow to the heart so that it can maintain arterial
pressure.
When the snake moves
head-down, blood pooling
in the head is reduced because:
- The cranium
is
hard;
- Wriggling
motion
maintains blood flow to the
tail;
- The
heart-rate
slows;
- The smooth
muscle
surrounding the blood vessels
relaxes and partly offsets increasing blood pressure in the head.
The Genesis 3 snake was
condemned to go
on its belly and eat dust.
Snakes, however, do not
eat dust but "taste"
the air and may in the process ingest some dust particles. Prey in
sandy
areas may have dust on its body, which is swallowed along with the
animal.
But if that's what's meant then many predators besides snakes eat dust.
SNAKE
HANDLING
Worshippers at the Church
of the Lord Jesus
in Jolo, West Virginia, speak in tongues, handle deadly snakes, drink
strychnine
and hold their hands in fire.
Oliver (2000) describes
events three hours
into the service:
Millissa Evans…climbs on
to the stage,
where she whirls like a dervish…grabs a jar of clear liquid and takes a
gulp. It is strychnine. She falls to the floor moaning for a moment.
Then she springs to her
feet and sets fire
to a rag stuffed in a bottle of spirit. When it is well ablaze she
plunges
her right hand into the heart of the flame. She marches the length of
the
stage, screeching and gibbering. (Oliver 2000)
Worshippers handle
rattlesnakes and copperheads,
wrap them around their necks, and even throw them to each other. Pastor
Bob Elkins' daughter died of snakebite at age 22, but other members
have
been bitten up to 86 times and survived.
Snake handling in church
began in 1908 in
Tennessee when George Went Hensley held a rattlesnake.
Describing a snake
handling service in North
Carolina Dr William Sargant writes, "At this point many of the
spectators
took fright and left the hall as quickly as they could."
Perhaps, however, it's the
snakes that should
be afraid. Tell us why, Pliny:
…all men have a poison
that is effective
against snakes; snakes flee from saliva as though from boiling water,
and
if it gets into their throats they die – this is especially the case if
the person is fasting. (p77)
REFERENCES:
Clark, J 1969 Man is the
Prey, Panther Science
Lillywhite, H B Snakes,
Blood Circulation
and Gravity, Scientific American 1988, December, pp 66-72
McLeish, K 1996 Myths And
Legends Of The
World, Blitz
Mathewson, R 1960 The How
And Why Wonder
Book of Reptiles And Amphibians, Wonder Books
Oliver, S Praise the Lord,
pass the serpent,
Sunday Herald 2000, January 23, p50
Pliny The Elder,
Translated by Healy, J F,
1991, Penguin
Priede, M The sea snakes
are coming, New
Scientist 1990, November 10, pp 21-25
Sargant, W 1976 The Mind
Possessed, Pan,
p222
Tanara, M U 1975 The
World
of Amphibians
and Reptiles, Abbeville
https://ed5015.tripod.com/