re: I hate snakes (bit 2 of my dogs) update - vengeance

Just quoting what the vet told us, not pretending to be some sort of snake expert.

quote:

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If you get a hot bite, it's better to come from a juvenile because their venom glands are smaller.

If they decide to use it, snakes don't moderate venom use. It's like cops and guns. They don't shoot unless they're ready to kill, and if that's the case, they empty the mag. Adult snakes know that their venom isn't likely to kill a human fast enough to be useful defense, so they're believed to be less inclined to use it and just issue a dry 'warning' bite. But if it does envenomate, it's using as much as it can.

The myth likely stems from juveniles being more inclined to use venom at all, thus dry bites are more common from adults and seemingly 'less potent'.

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I read a paper/article/whatever not long ago on different types of bites and why dry bites happen so often. Researchers have found that venom production is a really high energy process for the snake. It takes considerably more energy for the snake to produce venom than initially thought. So, if you think about a big, mature snake and the large glands (and relative amount of venom) it has, you can see why venom conservation would play a big role.

Your point about humans not being viewed as prey is important, too. They're not going to waste that venom with a defensive bite on non-prey animals. That same study also tried to parse out the venom control question. Some species seemed to have more control than others, but the deciding factor is mainly the duration of the bite, and of course, whether it was a single bite or multiple bites. You also have the fact that some snakes are just prone to bite more than once.

It is interesting that it doesn't seem to be just a hardwired reaction, there's more nuance to it than traditionally believed.