Exotic Pets Archives

How Can Snakes Crawl So Freely Without Any Feet? Not being the only animal with no feet, no doubt snakes are the most excellent reptile without feet. Then how can snakes move so freely, quickly, and smartly? That’s because snakes have locomotive organs all over the body, so they can move freely although they are long. Snakes have many backbones, around 100 to 500, short and broad, each one of which is connected with muscles and scales. The adjacent backbones can form a fluctuation of 28 degrees and a swing of 50 degrees. With these two combined, snakes’ unique winding function comes into being. In addition, snakes have a group of muscles on each side of their spinal column and when one group is in contraction, the other one is in relaxation. The wavelike motion can be spread from head to tail and then tail to head. With no obstacles during the process, this wavelike motion can be spread through the whole body. However, when the ground is uneven, bumpy, or narrow, snakes’ motion is influenced and they move forward under the press produced at the point where snakes’ body touches the ground. So on smooth glass or tile floors, snakes are not so flexible. Besides, snakes’ backbones are limited in angles when they are in motion, and they will slow down when they change directions or turn around. Snakes’ crawl velocity is a question concerned by many people. Most snakes can crawl at the highest speed of 1.5 km per hour. There are also several kinds of snakes, which move as fast as people at 6 km per hour. Garter snake moves very fast, while Agkistrodon halys snake and erythema snake move quite slow. How Serious The Toxicity Of Sea Snake Venom? Without exception, all sea snakes are poisonous snakes, but the severity of toxicity is different from each other. Sea snake venom contains neurotoxic like cobra venom, but the strange thing is that it plays a major role in skeletal muscle, so it is called ciguatera. Due to the complex composition of the sea snake venom, Most sea snake venom is harmful to people’s every organ and may affect every cell, the cardiovascular system, respiratory and nervous systems. Some people think that the toxicity of sea snake venom is 50 times more than toxic of cobra venom or is 80 times more than toxic sodium cyanide. It is estimated that 3.5 mg (dry weight) long-beaked sea snake venom, which is not the most poisonous in the sea snake, is enough to kill an adult, this is only one-fifth of a lethal dose of cobra venom. Sea snakes do not generally take the initiative to attack humans. According to the 120 cases of snake bites, the fishermen are bit by sea snake venom when the fishermen picked the fish and dived. Therefore, sea snakes would seriously threaten humans. In coastal areas of Thailand, Vietnam, and India, it is often reported that Some people have often been bit by a sea snake. Can The Sea Snake Venom Cure Diseases? China’s waters are known to have 15 kinds of sea snakes, for example, Lacticande semifasciata. Venoms from this sea snake have highly toxic and are much bigger than those from the most poisonous snake on land. Because its venom is a mixture of a variety of proteins, freeze-dried venom of the sea accounts for about 90% of peptides, including enzymes, peptides, small peptides. After a structural analysis, it was found that the short peptide chain of sea snake venom neurotoxin is composed of 60 -62 amino acid residues and four disulfides. The long polypeptide chain is composed of 66-74 amino acids residues and 5 disulfide bonds. They combine the high specificity acetylcholine receptors, blocking synaptic transmission, mainly blocking cholinergic neuromuscular joints, causing paralysis, mostly respiratory muscle paralysis and suffocation. It has been demonstrated that a variety of sea snake venom has a common antigen. Anti-snake venom serum, such as cleft chin sea of anti-snake venom toxins, can Offset 7-8 species of sea snake toxins, but also a variety of venoms from snakes on land, such as viper venom, cobra, king cobra snake venom, and so on. Therefore, sea snake antitoxin serum has a High value and can cure snake bites in clinical treatment. Sea snake wine can promote blood circulation and pain relief, commonly used for rheumatism pain and waist pain according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Although the enzyme content of sea snake venom is less than those of snakes on land. The venom of pit viper from Dalian Snake Island is a ready-made L-arginine esterase (the fiber coagulation-like enzyme). It has achieved good results for the treatment of vascular thrombosis disease and ischemic cerebrovascular disease. Does the sea snake venom have the same effect? With the depth of marine drugs research, sea snake venom will prove to be the precursor of marine drug material, and better serve the cause of human health. Can Snake Venom Protein Inhibit Tumor Growth? Researchers of the American Chemical Society are using found a protein from copperhead snake venom that can slow breast tumor growth. The protein blocks tumor cell adhesion and invasion and inhibits new blood vessel development in the tumors. Researchers from Australia are using snake venom to cure cancer. SVT(snake veom toxin) would inhibit the growth of AICAP According to an article from Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, snake venom has positive effects for inhibiting the growth of AICAP. The molecular was on nuclear factor, an anti-apoptotic transcriptional factor that can activate AICAP cell. The scientists treated AICAP cells with SVT for 24 hours, and then assessed their growth and found it slow the activation of NF-b which can speed up cancer cell growth. Australian found snake venom can slow Tumor growth. According to the anti-cancer research held by Australia, the researchers found that a compound from snake venom can destroy cells that contribute to supplying blood and nutrients to tumors. “What we’ve found that’s quite interesting to us is that the level of material that’s required, that is the concentration of material that’s required, is much lower than we would have expected normally,” Associate Professor Tony Woods said. “In fact, at the levels, we’re using these compounds seem to affect the blood vessels that supply tumors only and not normal blood vessels.” In the near future, more and more drugs that are used to cure cancer are from snake venom. Is Blowfish Venom More Powerful Than Cobra Venom? Cobra venom: Toxicity is a nerve poison, it will cause pain, swelling, high blood pressure, nausea, abdominal pain, drowsiness, limb paralysis, coma, and ultimately death. If bitten, after 15-30 minutes, there is no drug treatment, the victim will die.Blowfish venom: Blowfish is one of nature’s most poisonous animals, their body contains tetrodotoxin. It is more poisonous than potassium cyanide. Under normal circumstances, a little bit of this neurotoxin is sufficient to paralysis an adult within several minutes. Eating this toxic food, the man will feel unwell mind dizziness, numb mouth, until the fall to the ground, whole body spasm, breath and at last will die. Blowfish venom is more powerful than cobra venom? No one has done the exact comparison tests, and there are many types of cobra and blowfish. The toxicity of those are also different, it is very difficult to compare their toxicity. As the above data, two kinds of toxins are very powerful.