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.
A pair of rare sea snakes, thought to be extinct, sighted off Western Australia’s mid-north coast in 2015. Our stunning range of serpents inspire fear, but is that fair?
AAP Image/WA Parks and Wildlife/Grant Griffin
For over a century Australia’s venomous snakes have been counted amongst the world’s deadliest, yet human fatalities remain strikingly rare. How did our snakes develop such a fearsome reputation?
Puff adders display diverse predatory strategies. This shows they have higher cognitive abilities than previously thought.
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CT scanning allows scientists to observe and “dissect” fossils digitally using computer software - and to uncover secrets that are hundreds of millions of years old.
Just another of Australia’s creepy crawlies… but will it kill you?
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Australia’s snakes, spiders and other venomous critters tend to strike fear in many people. But is Australia’s reputation as a nation of deadly creatures deserved?
The black mamba is one of the most notorious venomous snakes in the world.
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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.
One of the enduring controversies in evolution is why snakes evolved their long, limbless bodies. A new study suggests snakes may have lost their legs at sea, before crawling ashore.
Puff adders can become motionless and scentless to avoid detection by those preying on them.
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Many venoms contain bioactive components that are so stable to the body’s enzymes and selective of their biological target that they’re increasingly being used as novel research tools.
Australian snakes can kill the most mice with the smallest amount of venom.
Michael Sale/Flickr
Each year, 45,000 people die from snakebite in India. A big international project has now set out to reduce this by hunting down and documenting dangerously venomous snakes.
Snake ancestor was crawly as well as creepy.
Dave Martill, University of Portsmouth
In October 2014, a 41-year-old man in the goldfields region of Western Australia collapsed and died within an hour of being bitten by the brown snake he was trying to capture. While such deaths are infrequent…
Many people think a snake’s forked tongue is creepy. Every so often, the snake waves it around rapidly, then retracts it. Theories explaining the forked tongues of snakes have been around for thousands…