Snake venom experts Stuart Ainsworth and Christoffer Sørensen talk to The Conversation Weekly podcast about the search for an antivenom that could neutralise toxins from multiple different snakes.
The deadly Gaboon viper is predicted to start migrating in search of a suitable climate in 2070.
Mark Kostich/Getty Images
New climate change modelling has found that as the earth heats up, venomous snake populations in Africa are likely to move across borders in search of places to live.
A Bothrops asper is prepared for its venom to be milked to use in making antivenom.
Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Universal Images Group
Social media has proved to be a helpful source of observations of snakes feeding. Knowing more about their diet is useful because it’s linked to their venom biochemistry.
People most at risk from snakebite are often from the most impoverished populations.
Andre Coetzer/Shutterstock
Not much is known about the pathology of trauma of black mamba bites – that is, what the black mamba’s toxin does, physically, inside a victim’s system.
Black mambas are extremely dangerous.
Shutterstock/NickEvansKZN
Coordinated international efforts may be key to improving the life expectancy and health of many snakebite victims.
An eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) in characteristic defensive posture. Orange spots on the snakes underside are a distinctive feature of brown snakes.
Matt Summerville
There has been at least one fatal bite from a very small brown snake in Australia. But now we know that venom is different in adult and baby brown snakes.
Scientists usually use the word “venomous” rather than “poisonous” when they’re talking about snakes.
Flickr/Sirenz Lorraine
If one venomous snake bites a mouse and injects venom into it, you can then feed that same dead mouse to another snake. The second snake won’t die.
Bites from brown snakes like this one were the most common, followed by
tiger snakes, then red-bellied black snakes.
Matt Clancy/SunOfErat/Wikimedia Commons
The best cure against a snakebite is to avoid being bitten at all. Here is what you need to know about snakebites, antivenom, and what you need to do if bitten.
The black mamba is one of the most notorious venomous snakes in the world.
Flickr
One way to tackle the snakebite antivenom crisis may be through biotechnological innovation to make antivenoms more cost-effective, easier to produce, and more efficacious against snakebites.
Paediatrician at the Royal Childrens Hospital and Associate Professor and Clinician Scientist, University of Melbourne and MCRI, Murdoch Children's Research Institute