Reading about the nature and wildlife is always exciting, so let’s learn about the most venomous snakes in the world. Insider Monkey has come up with a great compilation again. Actually almost all of of us fear of snakes. It’s some kind of ancient, and deep feeling inside the humans’ souls, and we associate lots of things to snakes. They appear in the Bible too as the Satan itself. We can’t help hating and sickening of them. But luckily their habitats don’t always coincide with our settlements, so we can avoid meeting them most of the time.
When it comes to fatal encounters there aren’t exact data can be used, as many of them aren’t reported. There is a method with which venom strength can be determined: the LD50 8median lethal dose) value of venom. The smaller the LD50 the stronger the venom, as less portion is needed to kill the victim. Personally I am really afraid of meeting snakes as I can’t recognize which are poisonous and which aren’t. Although I wouldn’t hurt them, as they are living creatures as well, but I do fear. Fortunately I live in a country where we have only two venomous snake species, and they are in the mountains where I don’ really go. On the other hand, these snakes are afraid of humans and they do try to avoid us, so I think we should leave their habitats to them.
Now without a further ado let’s see what Insider Monkey has investigated for us. We have picked three of most venomous snakes in the world from their list.
The first poisonous snake is Beaked sea snake, hook-nosed sea snake, common sea snake (Enhydrina schistosa), the LD50 is 0.164. This is an aquatic species that lives in waters of Indian and Pacific oceans and is very common near the coasts of India and Malay Peninsula, and a bit less common around northern Australian coasts. It inhabits the shallow sea and lagoons, and sometimes even freshwater lakes, and was even reported in Goa river in India, and some Australian rivers. The average body length goes up to 140 centimeters. Dorsal (back) side is grayish in color, with darker stripes covering the base, and ventral side (belly) is slightly lighter, yellowish white. We are continuing the list of the most venomous snakes in the world with Seakrait, Black-banded seakrait, Large-scaled seakrait (Laticauda laticaudata), its LD50 is 0.16. Seakrait is a common species in southwestern Pacific ocean around Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, up to China and Japan, and seldom found around Indian coast, where inhabits mangroves and coral reefs. Seakrait has a slender body with an average length of 70 centimeters, and it is vividly colored, with a light gray or bluish base with dark black stripes. Luckily, even being very venomous, it rarely attacks, even when being threatened and provoked. At least, but not least we are mentioning Gaboon Viper (Bitis gabonica) that can “boost” with LD50 0.14. The Gaboon Vipers lives mostly in equatorial, and east and southeast Africa, and it was named after Gabon, where it was originally found. It inhabits tropical rainforests and woodlands. This is one large and heavy snake. With around 1.8 meters of average body length and about 20 kg weight, it is considered the heaviest venomous snake in Africa. It has a characteristically thick body and distinctive triangle-shaped head, with huge fangs that can reach up to 5 centimeters. This snake also rarely attacks humans, only when severely provoked or stepped on.
For any further useful information, read Insider Monkey’s article about 20 most venomous snakes in the world.
