Boomslang

[Paulthebhoy]

Are boomslang DWA?

Cheers.

[joe_oasis]

yep

[Paulthebhoy]

Cheers Joe

[ViperLover]

Yup - Highly venomous.

Does anybody know what their delivery system is like?

[abandonallhope]

Boomslangs are DWA - rear fanged.

[lordbiggles]

There is a little clip of a boomslang on the end of Viperkeepers latest offering, here:-

YouTube - The Mystery Mouse

Dont think I want one anymore

[ian14]

Originally Posted by ViperLover

Yup - Highly venomous.

Does anybody know what their delivery system is like?

You only need to read a book to find out.
They are rear fanged so to introduce venom they chew the prey to allow the venom to run down the external groove of the fang into the prey. As with most "rear fanged" species, the fangs are in fact situated under the eye, NOT at the rear of the jaw.

[ViperLover]

Originally Posted by ian14

You only need to read a book to find out.
They are rear fanged so to introduce venom they chew the prey to allow the venom to run down the external groove of the fang into the prey. As with most "rear fanged" species, the fangs are in fact situated under the eye, NOT at the rear of the jaw.

Ok cheers. Do some rear-fanged species have a better delivery system then others? or are they about the same...?

Originally Posted by lordbiggles

There is a little clip of a boomslang on the end of Viperkeepers latest offering, here:-

YouTube - The Mystery Mouse

Dont think I want one anymore

Yep, I saw that. He obviously didn't want to eat Chicks...lol

[mad martin]

They are the same. Rear fangers (the dangerous one's) make up for the poor delivery system by having very potent venoms.

[pythondave82]

Originally Posted by ViperLover

Yup - Highly venomous.

Does anybody know what their delivery system is like?

When you say 'delivery system', what do you mean? You were given basic information from Mark, several weeks ago! See below:

Boomslang
The boomslang was considered potentially dangerous but whether or not it could kill a human was not confirmed until 1957 when Karl Patterson Schmidt, the eminent herpetologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, was tagged by a small specimen he was examining. He went home feeling unwell but called in to say he would be at work in a day or so. He never returned, it took three days but he died, probably of a brain haemorrhage since extensive internal bleeding is often the result of boomslang envenoming. At the time there was no boomslang antivenom so Schmidt was pretty much doomed from the onset.
There is antivenom now, in fact when I was in J'burg in 1997 I met the horse that they use for raising the monospecific boomslang antivenom, note I said "the horse", there was only one for boomslang (there may be more now). Someone on this thread said it was difficult for a boomslang to bite you. Not so, they have short wide mouths and their fangs are both large and positioned rather well forward for a rear-fanged snake (check out the image on p.15 of my Venomous Snakes of the World if you don't believe me). The venom is designed to deal with chameleons and weaver birds but unfortunately it also has a seriously deleterious effect on us. Bites are extremely serious, even from small specimens. Steve Spawls though he had been tagged when working in Botswana many years ago and immediately leapt into his Land Rover and drove over the border into S.Africa. Why? Because boomslang antivenom is in short supply, they are not easy to milk and antivenom is often only available in S.Africa. There may or may not be boomslang antivenom in the UK but my advice is take extreme care with these snakes as a death may be more likely following a bite, than from a cobra or a rattlesnake.
There are venomous snakes for which antivenom is either in short supply or does not yet exist (and may never) and a snakebite from one of these species, even with our advanced health care system, may not have a happy ending.

Dave