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Posted by Andy on October 26, 1997 at 10:01:07:
In Reply to: Re: What is considerd to be the world's most poisonous snake? posted by Bryan Grieg Fry on October 15, 1997 at 19:48:39:
: The beaked sea snake is the most toxic of the sea snakes but is still "only" number seven on the lethality scale. The top ten (in order) are Oxyuranus microlepidotus (Fierce-snake/Small-scaled snake/Inland Taipan), Pseudonaja textilis (Common/Eastern Brown snake), Oxyuranus scutellatus (Common/Coastal Taipan), Notechis ater ater (Krefft's tiger snake), Notechis ater niger (Peninsula tiger snake), Notechis scutatus scutatus (Mainland tiger snake), Enhydrina schistosa (Beaked sea snake), Notechis ater occidentalis (Western Tiger snake), Notechis ater serventyi (Chappell Island tiger snake), Acanthophis antarticus (Common death adder).
: LD-50 studies have not been done on N. a. humphreysi (Tasmanian tiger snake) but based on similarity it should be between N. a. occidentalis and N. a. serventyi. The black snakes (Genus Pseudechis) are relatively non-toxic, being almost four times less toxic than that of the cobra.
: The venoms are not studied much using gel eletrophoresis, the primary techniques are HPLC (either ionic or reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography), and LC-MS (liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry). LC-MS allows for purification of components and determination of precise mass at the same time.... I've found it to be extremely useful.
: As for human lethal doses, this is extrapolated from mouse LD-50s (the amount of venom it would take to kill half the mice injected). Thus, the Inland taipan has a lethal dose of less than 1 milligram.... the average milking venom yeild is is 44 mg with a max of 110 mg. The amount injected in a bite is about a third of this, so... you can expect to recieve from an adult inland taipan somewhere between thirteen and thirty lethal doses, far less than that spouted off by Steve "Crocidile Hunter" Irwin, he has a tendancy to sensationalise things over here. The eastern brown snake has a lethal dose of about half of that of the inland taipan but injects far far less venom (average milking from 4 mg from sourthern variants to 35 that I have gotten from big queenland speciments). The coastal taipan is about half as toxic as the eastern brown but can yeild between 100-400 mg in a single milking, so could hit you with between 8 to 40 lethal doses!!! Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that a bite by a big coastal taipan is the worst bite you could expect to get.
Have you seen the lectures at the Orlando show? The one speaker (sorry I forget his name)gave the same list, starting with the inland taipan.
