The study is the largest of its kind comparing how venomous snakes strike their prey in controlled conditions.<\/p>\n
Lead author Silke Cleuren travelled to Venomworld in Paris, where snakes from around the globe are bred to extract venom for medical uses, to find scaly research participants.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Silke Cleuren studies the evolution of snake fangs and biting techniques among venomous species. (Supplied: Silke Cleuren)<\/p>\n
Dr Cleuren, an evolutionary biologist at Monash University, and her colleagues recorded the bites 36 species of snakes from across the viper, elapid and colubrid families.<\/p>\n
These included the rough-scaled death adder (Acanthophis rugosus) from Australia, the western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) and west African carpet viper (Echis ocellatus).<\/p>\n
According to Alistair Evans, study co-author and evolutionary morphologist also at Monash University, it didn’t take much to entice them to bite.<\/p>\n
Each snake was presented with a warmed-up cylinder of medical gel at the end of a pole to simulate some fleshy food.<\/p>\n
“We put eyes on the front of it to make it look like it was an animal-type thing,” Professor Evans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We let them strike at it and we captured the strike with high-speed video cameras.<\/p>\n
“I’m not going to insult the snakes in the audience, but I don’t think snakes are particularly picky when they’re choosing their prey,” he said.<\/p>\n
The three-dimensional movement of each snake was then reconstructed to calculate factors like their speed and acceleration.<\/p>\n
VipersLoading…<\/p>\n
Vipers are well known to be some of the fastest striking snakes.<\/p>\n
The team found that on average prey was reached within just 100 milliseconds \u2014 that’s about three times faster than the blink of a human eye.<\/p>\n
The fastest \u2014 the blunt-nosed or Levantine viper (Macrovipera lebetina) \u2014 reached the prey in just over 20 milliseconds.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Levantine viper (Macrovipera lebetina) was the fastest snake to get to the gel cylinder, biting it within 21.7 milliseconds from its striking position. (iNaturalist: Aur\u00e9lien Grimaud<\/a>, Levantine viper<\/a>, CC BY-NC 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n Almost all these snakes captured the prey within what’s known as the “mammalian startle response”.<\/p>\n “If something is moving towards you, you have to see it with enough time to register that it’s moving, and then react to it,” Professor Evans said.<\/p>\n “Your brain tells your muscles to move, so less than 100 milliseconds is much, much faster than the mammalian startle response, particularly for large mammals like us.”<\/p>\n Drops of venom left on the gel cylinder after being bitten. (Supplied: Silke Cleuren)<\/p>\n Vipers have hinged fangs, which allow them to have longer teeth that fold into their mouth when not in use.<\/p>\n During the study, if their initial bite wasn’t to their liking, the vipers would “walk” up their fangs into a better position to inject venom.<\/p>\n Vipers were by far the most common species in the survey, making up 31 of the 36 species of snakes available at Venomworld to be analysed.<\/p>\n This family contains some of the most deadly snakes in the world, causing thousands of deaths a year in Asia and Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n Timothy Jackson, a snake venom researcher at the University of Melbourne who was not involved in the research, noted that the study was a large and important analysis into this group of snakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We don’t see a great deal of this kind of work,” he said<\/p>\n “They convincingly make the case as to why their own study significantly improves our knowledge.”<\/p>\n Australia does not have any vipers.<\/p>\n Professor Jackson noted it was important to expand this research for other types of snakes \u2014 particularly Australian \u2014 but this would be difficult to do.<\/p>\n “It’s a significant chunk of work. You’d need to be in collaboration with [a venom facility] and there would need to be specific funding, which is always a challenge for a behavioural study,” Dr Jackson said.<\/p>\n ElapidsLoading…<\/p>\n Most of Australia’s venomous snakes belong to a family known as elapids, which have fangs in the front of their mouths.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Australian rough-scaled death adder (Acanthophis rugosus) was one of four elapids studied.<\/p>\n The death adder was extremely fast \u2014 able to reach its prey in about 30 milliseconds, and moved at up to 2.21 metres per second.<\/p>\n The rough-scaled death adder (Acanthophis rugosus), found in the Northern Territory and Queensland, was the only Australian snake in the study. (iNaturalist: Brandon Sidelieu<\/a>, Rough-scaled death adder<\/a>, CC BY-NC 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n Dr Jackson said the finding confirmed death adders were very similar to vipers in the way they strike.<\/p>\n “Death adders strike extraordinarily quickly and are very much in the viper range \u2026 these are incredibly fast strikers,” he said.<\/p>\n “In fact, in terms of reaching maximum velocity, death adders were the second fastest species in the entire study.”<\/p>\n Elapids have much shorter fangs than vipers, so they creep closer to their prey before striking repeatedly to squeeze in venom.<\/p>\n Dr Jackson noted that much of the study was not “all that surprising”, mostly backing up what scientists already knew about snakes.<\/p>\n “But having all of that quantitative analysis to confirm those intuitions is really important,” he said.<\/p>\n “I think it’s a really cool contribution to venomous snake biology in general.”<\/p>\n ColubridsLoading…<\/p>\n The mangrove or gold-ringed cat snake (Boiga dendrophila) from southeast Asia was the sole Colubridae species in the study.<\/p>\n This group of snakes have fangs situated towards the back of their mouth, so they have a different biting style to the vipers and elapids.<\/p>\n Maximum gape, the opening of the snake’s mouth, was reached sooner than the other species and held for a longer distance.<\/p>\n Once making contact, the gold-ringed cat snake closed its mouth and dragged its maxilla, a moveable upper jawbone, around to create gaping cuts in the shape of crescents.<\/p>\n The study theorises this could better allow for venom transfer into the snake’s prey.<\/p>\n Large gashes were left in the gel cylinder from the rear fangs being swept side to side by a Colubrid snake. (Supplied: Silke Cleuren)<\/p>\n The final velocity of the snake used in the study got progressively faster over three bites from 1m per second to 3.2m per second.<\/p>\n While the mangrove snake uses its venom to target small animals it is not considered harmful to humans.<\/p>\n There are a few Colubridae species in Australia, many of which are non-venomous.<\/p>\n Because only one Colubridae species was included in the paper, Professor Evans noted there could be more variation that we’re missing in species from that snake family.<\/p>\n “One of the interesting findings of the paper was how different families of snakes use their venom in different ways,” he said.<\/p>\n “We were limited by what they had in Paris. But it’s at least the start.”<\/p>\n The gold-ringed cat snake (Boiga dendrophila) with its rear fangs was the only member of the Colubridae family in the study. (iNaturalist: Brandon Sidelieu<\/a>, Gold-ringed cat snake<\/a>, CC BY-NC 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n Dr Jackson suggested the study could be a blueprint for more research around the world.<\/p>\n “There’s a real proof of principle here,” he said.<\/p>\n “I hope it can be more broadly applied and also potentially modified for for other studies.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venomous snakes can strike their prey, or people, in a fraction of a second. 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