Uh Oh, Spicy Snakes!

From rattlesnakes to copperheads, we're talking about some of America's most dangerous cutie noodles! How does their venom work? Do they really want to bite your stinky ol' leg? And how to respect nature's most potent linguini. Discover this and more as we answer the age-old question, why are we injecting horses with snake venom? Featuring naturalist and snake expert Alexi Grousis!

Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yuHcp1EU6xXdwVk1k2UPnVDLD1IG9mFVmL31NcsA3-k/edit?usp=sharing

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Pit Vipers
of America, from rattlesnakes to copper heads, we're talking about
some of America's most dangerous cuty noodles. How does their

(00:27):
venom work? Do they really want to bite your stinky
ole leg? And how should we respect nature's most potent
Linguini discover this and more as we answered the age
old question why are we injecting horses with snake venom?
Joining me today is naturalist Friend to Snakes and co
host of the natural science podcast THO We out Here Podcast,

(00:51):
Alexei Gruss. Welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Katie.
I really appreciate it. You know, I'm excited to talk
about snakes and pretty much any guy under the sun,
including the things that basket. Yes that I love that
Turner phrase. I do love snakes, uh, And I think
that I like to often point out some snakes on

(01:12):
the show that are not venomous, you know, the sort
of friendly snakes of the world. But I also think
that we should still love and appreciate the more dangerous snakes,
the snakes that know you should not cuddle, but they
are still wonderful creatures, very amazing. Even their venom is amazing,

(01:33):
even though you don't want it inside of you. Really.
Uh So, I wanted to talk about pit vipers, and
the most famous pit vipers in the US are rattle snakes.
So yeah, rattlesnakes. There are thirty six species of rattle
snakes and even more subspecies, and they are found all

(01:54):
throughout the America's And yes, they are in fact highly venomous,
aren't they They are? Yeah, yeah, that venom is is
a pretty unique and special feature of these venomous snakes
because they're able to inject it through their things, like
actually through their teeth, which is pretty spectacular, pretty wild. Yeah.

(02:15):
This was what was interesting because as I was researching it,
I was starting to like write up stuff about like, no,
it's not like a syringe. It's like the venom runs
through a groove, because that is how it is with
other venomous species. But you know, with these guys, it
is actually like a syringe. They have these hollow things
and a venom gland that actually squeezes it right into

(02:40):
the fing mm hmm, that's right. Yeah, yeah, So what
what One thing that I find actually incredibly interesting about
that is there's a whole apparatus going on inside of there,
from the venom gland to the part that's actually squeezing
it to a gland that or a part that actually
activates the venom before it is injected, So that venom

(03:03):
that's trapped inside of their head isn't even the full
venom that that's injected into their prey. Yeah, it is.
It is amazing. So even though you know, it is
kind of scary, it is an incredibly complex apparatus that
they are using. Despite the fact that they have such
a fancy mouth weapon. They really don't want to use

(03:25):
it on you, a bumbling human who's stamping around in
their environment. They want to use it on their prey,
and it is only really a last resort when it
comes to humans or predators. Snakes don't really want to
waste a lot of energy producing their venom, you know,
they want to save it primarily for their food. That's

(03:47):
what it's originally adapted for. These snakes use it as
a way to subdue prey instead of constricting them and
they don't really want to waste it on a person's foot. Yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah,
this is it's precious material, and they do not want
to waste it on you, and so they will try

(04:07):
to warn you to leave them alone with their fabulous rattles.
So that rattle is their way of saying, hey, back off,
I don't want to bite you, you don't want to
get bitten. Let's just have this situation resolved peacefully so
I can go back to injecting mice with powerful toxins.

(04:27):
So the rattle unlike a man made rattle where it's
like a hollow chamber filled with something inside that rattles around.
It's actually a series of hollow chambers made of keratin
that stack on top of one another, and when vibrated,
these hard hollow segments strike one another and produce a

(04:50):
loud rattling sound, at least in the larger species. And
the rattling muscles of rattlesnakes are some of the fastest
muscles in the animal kingdom, with fifty pulses per second,
which is incredible. That's bananas. I did not know that
that's that. It's incredible. It's not surprising because when you

(05:13):
see a rattlesnake rattling, you don't actually see it rattling.
It's moving so fast that it just sometimes they can
look like it's completely still. Yeah, it is. It is spectacular,
and it's it's actually really interesting that they have this
rattling system because it develops over the snake's lifetime, throughout

(05:36):
their various shedding cycles. So when they're born, they just
have this like little nub that can't rattle. It's just
this one little segment, and every time they shed they
actually are able to add a new segment to their rattles.
So only after their second shedding can they actually rattle,

(05:58):
because now they have two segments of the rattle, and
every time it sheds, it adds a new segment. So
with regard to those, uh, those rattles, a really cool
thing that was recently that's recently been found is that
they not only provide a sound cue, but they can
also theoretically have a visual cueue. And what I mean

(06:21):
by that is they are biofluorescent, so under a black light,
they actually fluoresce. They show up being bright green under
a black light. Uh. And so the question now is
is there any benefit to having a fluorescent rattle like
that because so few animals can actually see ultra violet light,

(06:42):
but the ones that do this rattle would show up
in a whole new light form. That is so cool.
I didn't know that. And it seems like every day
we discover more animals that biofluoress. Like we just have
to run a black light over every living creature because
so many of them biofluoress. But yeah, that is that

(07:03):
is really interesting. Yeah, I love that secret secret glowing
snake tails. Yeah, it shattered my mind when I first
heard about it. Yeah. Yeah, another kind of secret power
that these rattlesnakes have. I mean they are pit vipers,
and they're called pit vipers not because they are vipers
who are like writhing around in a pit, but because

(07:26):
they have these heat sensing pits on the sides of
their faces. So these are sensory organs that can detect
thermal energy like a thermal imaging camera. Yeah. Yeah, And
for the longest time I had understood that as oh,
they can like feel the heat in a specific way,
but no, they're able to create from what we understand,

(07:47):
because it's really hard to actually see into the mind
of an animal, but from the best understanding we have,
we think they can like they can produce three D
images in their own minds and incredibly similar to our vision,
which is pretty pretty wild when you really start thinking
about that. Yeah, that is so cool. They have they
have heat sensing imaging sort of like some kind of

(08:11):
Jason Born thing going on with these snakes, which is
built in. Yeah, and it's really cool because I mean,
their eyes are while they're very sensitive to movement, they
don't really see in high definitions. So probably for a
while we've thought about these snakes not having great vision,
but working with those thermal imaging cameras they have in

(08:34):
their face pits, it's like, maybe they actually do have
pretty good, uh, sort of precise imaging that we just
didn't know about because we looked at their eyes and
they're like, oh their eyes, don't you know? Their eyes
have blurry visions, So how can how can they make
up well defined images of their environment? Right? And and

(08:57):
we don't consider them a very you know, very intelligent
animals like elephants and orcas, but you really have to
give it up for their brain for being able to
process that much information, because that's so much more sensory
information than we're receiving because they can also you know,
hear through their jaws, they can feel vibrations through their belly,
they're seeing those heat images. They're taking in uh, you know,

(09:20):
dimensional smells with their forked tongue. Like they're processing a
lot of sensory information in their environment. And for them
to be able to do that, utilize it, and make
decisions in their lives is that's that's kind of mind blowing. Yeah,
that is absolutely amazing. They're like a one of the
most advanced cameras in the world that can have night

(09:41):
vision and heat vision that can also slither around and
make decisions. Yeah. Yeah, so, yes, they have a very
good sense of smell as well as do all snakes.
They can use their nostrils and they also use their
tongue to sort of flick They flick out their tongue
and kind of pull in smelly particles and transfer them

(10:04):
to an old factory or organ located on the roof
of their mouth. Mm hmm. So, which makes them just
the ultimate detection uh machine. And it makes a lot
of sense because they are ambush predators. They don't necessarily
go chasing after their prey. They lay in wait or

(10:26):
try to sneak up to some of their prey and
then strike quickly at them to get them before these
little mice and little reptiles even know what hit them. Yeah, yeah,
and a pretty cool thing. The pit vipers that we
have here, a lot of their a lot of their
pits are oriented towards the front of their snow and
that allows them to see those you know, those small

(10:49):
rodents typically or birds that pass in front of them,
whereas there's us. There's another type of snake called the
children's python. That is uh it's a python non vi,
a mis snake, a constrictor that lives in Australia. It's
one of the smallest constrictors they have there. This one
is a cave dweller, so it'll actually climb up the
walls of the caves with its incredibly muscular body and

(11:12):
when bats fly by, it's able to catch these bats.
And so when you think about it, it wouldn't want
its pits in the front of its face. Instead, this
python has pits located on the sides of its jaw
so that I actually can see the back coming. So
the location of the pit can actually tell us a
little bit about the type of prey it's going for,

(11:33):
and that pit development is definitely a response to the
environment that the snake is living in. That is so cool.
It's like, Hey, I've got some bat as prey that
have wings and can fly around my head. No problem,
I'll just put my heat detecting super sensors up over
here so they can detect these bats. That is incredible. Yeah. Yeah,

(11:55):
to be able to like predict their movement with that
is wow. I'm just my blown even just talking about
it right now. I also love the cave dwelling snake.
I don't think we think of pythons or I don't
think we think of snakes as living in caves, but yes,
they will inhabit every niche that they can. Yeah, yeah,

(12:16):
pretty spectacular. And when you live in you know, dark
environments like that, a lot of animals will develop specialized
eyes for it, or you know, their eyes may virtually
go away, right, don't need them. Right, So with snakes,
a lot of snakes will have this slit pupil and
that isn't an indicator of whether or not a snake
is venomous or non venomous. Uh, it's actually an indicator

(12:39):
of whether or not the snake is active in dim light.
That's the biggest teller because if you think about it,
a cat has the same type of eye. The cat
is not venomous as much as they can be pretty spicy.
So these snakes that have a slit pupil, typically they're
going to be active in really low lights. On top
of that, a slip pupil is typically only good if

(13:00):
you live near a lowser or near a surface. So
cats house cats are pretty pretty short animals, so they
you know, they live near the ground, whereas a tiger,
they can be pretty active during the nighttime. They actually
have a circular pupil, So you'll see a lot of
venomous snakes like cobras will have a circular pupil, whereas
a lot of other venomous snakes like these pit vipers

(13:22):
in the US, a lot of them do have these, uh,
these slip pupils. That is so fascinating. I love that
snakes really are like rattlesnakes really are kind of like
noodle cats, but with venom they are. Yeah, especially the
especially the cane brake rattlesnakes or a lot of people
know them as timber rattlesnakes, they're you know, they You

(13:44):
don't want to get bitten by them, You don't want
to cuddle them, you want to respect their space. But man,
they're big puppies, especially you know, anyone who's actually handled
one with snake hooks and proper equipment and training, they yeah,
they're they're just big, big sausages, big sausages, big old head,
big old body. Short. I love that. Yes, I mean

(14:06):
I think that it is just because these snakes are
dangerous when they bite, doesn't mean that they are aggressive. Uh.
In fact, I think from what I've read, most of
the pit vipers who are the more the more deadly
in terms of their toxicity, they tend to be less aggressive,
whereas some of the more aggressive ones tend to be

(14:27):
a little less venomous. That's not always the case, but uh,
it does seem like that is often the case. Yeah. Yeah,
And different different species can can be more responsive than others,
and that can depend on a lot of different factors,
on whether or not they have other signifiers of their
toxicity or you know, if they have better camouflage or not.

(14:49):
It can also be effected of by you know what
sort of predators they may have in the area, something
that I you know as as someone who's trained to
handle venomous snakes and often does UH. One of the
most important things that we understand is that the majority
of really bad snake bites and the majority of snake
bites period are coming from people who are inappropriately or

(15:11):
attempting to handle and mainly people who are trying to
kill venomous snakes. A lot of times when folks are
trying to trying to kill a snake, they find that
is when they get bitten. So if you do find
a venomous snake in your area and you're not comfortable
with where it's at, it's always good to call an expert.
You know a lot of them will come out for
free and we'll move the snake. You can always call

(15:31):
up your local zoo and they can oftentimes connect you
with someone who can handle that for you, or local
animal control, especially if they have the proper handling and permitting.
You don't try to kill a rattle snake and don't
even like it's If you see a rattlesnake or any
snake that also looks dead, don't pick it up because

(15:52):
and don't message can still be highly venomous even when
they are dead. So you really just don't want to
mess with these guys. Uh, just leave them alone unless
you are highly trained. Yeah, yeah, exactly a lot of times,
if if you see a snake, a venomous one that
is living around your house, chances are you got something

(16:14):
around your house that's drawing them in. So the best
way to really get rid of snakes, if you have
too many in your area or you're not comfortable with them,
usually it's to get rid of the mice. You know,
if you can handle the mice in your area, and
if you can get rid of your pest problem, it's
gonna stop drawing in the predators who rely on those
pests for food. Yeah. See, if they're they're noodle cats

(16:35):
with spicy bites. Yeah. And the number one best way
to handle venomous snakes in your area is to support
animals like king snakes, support your local raptors. And then
also if you live in the southeast, you know, supporting
conservationists who relocate indigo snakes. Indigo snakes are the largest
snake I believe that we have in North America, getting

(16:57):
up to like nine ft long and they will eat
a snake as big as an Eastern diamond bag, which
is insane. You could probably find some good videos. I've
seen a few on Twitter of scientists who ran across
uh an indigo snake consuming an Eastern diamond bag. That
is incredible, just wild. Yeah. Yeah. And even in the

(17:19):
areas that indigoes were reintroduced in, like Alabama, they're actually
seeing a really positive response in the bird population. A
lot of these birds have started growing in population thanks
to the relocation of these snakes. It's just it's so
important to preserve species because of the interconnectedness of them

(17:39):
where you know, instead of thinking like we've gotta eliminate
these rattlesnakes, we gotta you know, like humans have to
go out and kill a bunch of them, cold them,
you know. Just supporting the indigenous species often will correct
the if there are too many rattle snakes or too
many of a certain type of animal, like you just
support the balance of the species in that area, and

(18:01):
usually things will kind of sort itself out. Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of conservation can also be supported, you know,
globally by supporting indigenous people because a lot of them
living on the land a lot of them have really
great cultural practices that actually, you know, in intentionally and
incidentally protect a lot of these land spaces. Yeah. Absolutely,

(18:24):
I mean it's one of the greatest tragedies of you know,
the natural history of the United States. That I mean,
the cultural genocide of the people who are living here
before white settlers came here. Also, in addition to it
being a humanitarian crisis, of course, is also an ecological
crisis because so many of the practices that had been

(18:46):
developed over thousands and thousands of years that helped cultivate
the natural landscape were lost or even made illegal, like
the way that in California now famously a tinderbox. Uh,
there used to be controlled burns of the lands by
tribes that lived in California, and that was made illegal

(19:09):
for logging purposes. And unfortunately, uh, the that those old
strategies of doing controlled burns were really good for maintaining
the forests. It even would have like these far reaching
effects like helping fish populations by creating these plumes that

(19:31):
would shade the rivers. Yeah. So it was this amazing
way of sort of keeping the land safe not only
for humans, but for animals and flora. As well. But
then we just you know, white settlers who wanted to
make money from logging made it illegal, and now here

(19:52):
we have California which is just constantly going up in flames. Yeah, yeah,
and something that you know, a lot of us who
are educated under you know, under a Western curriculum in school,
a lot of us think that humans are separated from
the land, when the reality is some ecosystems in North
America were actively created by indigenous people because they've been

(20:15):
here for as much as long as more than twenty
tho years, and that's older than a lot of ecosystems
that are around us right now. So a lot of
these ecosystems were impacted by humans who have lived here.
Those humans are a keystone species now and back then,
for better and or for worse. You know, beavers are
sort of our counterparts of one of the other species

(20:37):
of animals that have a very drastic effect on their environment.
Although I think, uh, at least in comparing to more
modern times, so beavers are better at being good stewards
of their more as inconvenient as they may seem, they
are incredibly beneficial. Yes, but yeah, no, that is exactly right.

(20:58):
It is I think so important to remember that there
are ways to live with our uh, live with our
natural resources, uh and the indigenous species in a way
that is productive and non destructive. And we don't just

(21:23):
because something seems kind of scary or dangerous doesn't mean
we need to eliminate it. And in fact, by eliminating it,
we can get a have a bunch of compounding problems.
Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, uh you know, and those compounding
problems can show up as you know, explosions in the

(21:45):
mouse population. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd
rather see a snake than see twenty mice in my house. Yes,
you know, and uh you know those exploding you know,
like with the white footed mouse population. I believe that's
the right species. You know, they carry a lot of
tickborn illnesses. Um, you know, you can you can see
that show up in in public health. It affects us

(22:07):
in a lot of ways. It's expensive economically, um you
know it. It hurts our infrastructure. So no matter what
your perspective is, you know, protecting wildlife and protecting the
planet has a benefit on every single level you could
possibly imagine. Yeah exactly, I mean, uh, like we said, before.
These rattlesnakes really don't want to bite you. They want

(22:28):
to bite mice because that is their food, and they
don't want to waste their precious spicy mouth venom on
you because it is really for them to be able
to hunt. When we get back, we will talk a
little bit about what happens if a rattlesnake does bite you,
why you shouldn't panic, and the mechanism behind the venom

(22:49):
and why it is so interesting. Alright, so I hope
that we have u given people a perspective with the
rattlesnakes that no, they are not a scary monster that
we should get rid of, but their bites are dangerous.
And yes, it is true that if you do not

(23:11):
get treatment for a rattlesnake bite, it can kill. But
because there is so much available anti venom in the US,
if you get treated, the best time is to get
treated as soon as possible and within two hours of
being bitten. If you do, your chance of survival is

(23:32):
well over. And often, actually rattlesnakes may bite and not
even distribute venom. It's called a dry bite, and it
happens in roughly of reported bites. That's not to say,
you should assume if you've been bitten that it was

(23:52):
a dry bite. You should always uh seek medical attention.
But the best thing to do is to make sure
don't get bitten by giving rattlesnakes a respectful distance. So
there are some rattlesnake safety things that I think are
really important, especially the summer as you're going out and

(24:13):
um maybe doing some hiking. One thing is always have
your dog leash when you're going hiking. Even if you
have a really well behaved dog who will has good recall,
it is really good for your dog safety as well
as the safety of wildlife to keep them on a
leash because dogs are the most at risk for death

(24:34):
from rattlesnake bites because they are smaller and the rattlesnake
venom will affect them much more quickly. Yeah. Yeah, actually,
you know that I have a personal story with that.
You know, I lost a dog to attle snake bite.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, she was a Siberian Husky, a
really really great dog, but you know, we were you know,
we would keep her off leash and especially when when

(24:56):
we went up to the mountains. Uh. You know, as
as an adult now having learned as much as I
have about ecology. I you know, when walking a dog,
I always keep them on leash. In addition to you know,
protecting the wildlife, it also protects the people around you.
But yeah, she was bitten around her face and neck,
and unfortunately the vet wasn't able to wasn't able to
save her. She was a little bit older, but you know,

(25:17):
she would still potentially be around if actually, no, she
would she would definitely be dead by now because she'd
be an ancient husky. But you know, yeah, yeah, we
lost the dog prematurely to snake by You know, it's
something that a lot of people, a lot of people
think of as really abstracted, but it's you know, it's
something that will impact you, you know, emotionally if you

(25:38):
care about your dog. But then on top of that,
it was not cheap, that was that was a lot
of crofab that they had to give that dog. And
you know, on top of losing, you know, losing what
we considered a family member, it also incurred a pretty
stiff bill. Yes, yeah, I am so sorry to hear
that happened. That is so sad. Yeah, exactly, And I

(25:59):
think it's something that it's hard to like even imagine
that would happen. Like when you're taking your dog on
a walk, you just don't you think about maybe keeping
them safe from cars, but from snakes, it just isn't.
It isn't something that we're necessarily aware of all the time. Yeah. Yeah,
and cats as well, you can also can also be

(26:20):
a pretty big danger to almost said to dogs, Yes,
to dogs, but two snakes. Cats are you know, really quick,
they're very nimble, and they can wear a snake down.
And while you know a lot of people do enjoy
seeing a cool video of a cat beating a snake
in a fight, the reality is that, you know, the
loss of these snakes again causes a lot of damage.

(26:42):
And if your cat does get bit, and that's a
very serious bite for your cat to manage and hopefully
get home from. Yeah, yeah, I mean keep keep your
cats and dogs safe and keep wildlife safe by just
keeping them, uh, you know, keep them separated, like your
your cat and your dog is uh, they're lovely companions
to having your home or outside on the leash. But yeah,

(27:03):
you just want to you want to keep everybody safe,
and in order to keep yourself safe from rattle snakes,
you want to read signs and stay on marked paths.
Snakes rattle snakes are not aggressive. They want to avoid you.
So if they know there is a well trodden path
where lots of people use it, they're going to avoid that.

(27:25):
If you wear boots, thick socks, and long jeans, that
actually does offer a good amount of protection. Especially thicker jeans.
I'm not talking like jeggings, um, but but yeah, like
night good quality thick jeans will actually help prevent some
of the injection of the venom. Uh. And so if

(27:48):
you have to walk in an area where you're sort
of your ankles are brushing up against a lot of brush,
wearing stuff around your ankles is gonna help protect you. Uh.
And of course, if you see or hear a rattlesnake,
do not panic. Just stop where you are, calmly, try
to locate where the snake is, like, listen for it,

(28:10):
look around, and once you have located the source of
the rattle, just very calmly back away because the rattle
snake is scared of you right now. So if you
make a sudden like if you run or make a
sudden movement, it's going to also be startled. Uh. So
you just want to you know, you see the snake

(28:32):
and you calmly kind of back away. You don't want
to startle it. You don't want to run, and if
you are bitten again, don't panic. Rattlesnake bites are highly
highly survivable. You will survive if you get treatment. You
don't want to run, and you want to limit your
movement because you don't want to like, the more you run,

(28:53):
the more you move around, like the more your heartbeats, uh,
it'll kind of more quickly distribute the vino. So if
you call emergency services, see if they can come pick
you up where you are, and then just kind of
sit down and rest, of course away from the snake,
but you know, just kind of try. I know, it's
like you're probably it's easier said than done to not panic,

(29:17):
but you just want to kind of sit and rest
um if you're somewhere where you can't get picked up
and taken to a hospital. But it's also incredibly important
to call poison control. That's something that not a lot
of people talk about, and the reason why is that
poison control will be your advocate when you're speaking to
a medical professional. They are the ones that know a

(29:38):
lot about venom. Uh, they know a lot about toxification,
and they will advise your doctor on how much anti
venom to give you. And that's really important because you know,
if you're given too little, you may you may experience
invenomation effects later on from it not being neutralized. So
you definitely want to speak to poison Control um and

(29:59):
give them a call. If you've got an iPhone, you know,
hit Syrie and have her called him for you. But
it's incredibly important to get ahold of poison control. That
is really good advice. Yes, uh. And there are some
kinds of like old wives tales about things you should
do when you get bitten by the should absolutely not do.
Maybe the most famous one is sucking venom out of

(30:20):
the wound. Do not do that. It's not going to
help you. And now you've just got venom in your mouth,
right right, because yeah, the moment you're bitten, that venom
is most of it is left the area in best
case scenario, if you just as you said, if it's
in the area, now it's in your mouth, yeah, and
you can absorb a lot through your gums or any
small nicks or cuts in your in that gum surface. Yes,

(30:44):
you've got you might swallow something, which is also bad.
You've got mucus membranes all over your mouth and down
your throat, and you don't want venom in there. You
also do not want to apply a tourniquet. While it's
true you don't want the venom to quickly like you
don't want to pump your heart really fast and quickly
get the venom going, you also don't want to stop

(31:07):
the flow of blood because you do want some delution
of the venom. If you apply a tourniquet, it just
means that the venom is going to kill the cells
in that area, and much more quickly because it's in
such higher concentrations. So you may actually need amputation if
you apply a tourniquet, whereas if you do not do that,

(31:30):
you just kind of calmly wait for emergency services and
poison control. You may, after you get treatment, have no
lasting ill effects. Yeah yeah. And then on top of that,
eventually you have to take the tourniquit off. And what
can happen is all of that venom can exit your
arm or your leg at the same time, so that

(31:52):
it can it can provide an even bigger effect on
your body right after the tourniquets pulled off. So yeah, yeah,
definitely avoid the tourniquet as much as we all want
to be arnold, you know, putting that tourniquet on with
like putting the belt around our leg and tugging it
with our teeth. Like as cool as it looks, it's
not a it's not a good vibe when you're actually
out there having having to manage it. If you do

(32:13):
have a bandage on you, if you have something like
a compression bandage, that actually can be a good option
for some snake bites. And when I say compression bandage,
I mean wrapping it around your entire arm or down
your entire leg evenly, providing even pressure, and that can
reduce the swelling and inflammation that can happen. But again,

(32:33):
do not cut off circulation. Rap it sort of like
you have an injured ankle, you know, that same type
of wovenly across the whole lamb. Yeah, like like compression
socks on an airplane level. You don't want you don't
want to cut off blood circulation. Ye, yeah, yeah, so
you don't. You don't want to panic. Very very few

(32:56):
people actually die from rattlesnake bites in the US, even
though a lot of people are accidentally bitten. So with
treatment you will be fine. And by relaxing by and
certainly by not attacking the snake, you're much less likely
to actually get So it is, it is something that
is you can cope with. We have so many ways

(33:19):
to protect against snake bites and to treat them once
you've gotten it, so it is not a reason to
panic and like cut your arm off. Don't do that, Katie, Katie,
can I share with you one of the wildest ones
I've ever heard of? Yes? So, okay, so I didn't.
I'd never heard about this growing up. I grew up

(33:40):
in central California, lived in the Midwest for a while,
lived down in New Orleans now, but I had never
heard about this until I took a snake corpse. Apparently
some people you know, grew up under the thought that
you can actually reduce or treat a snake bite by
applying an electrical current, and that one, that one is
incredibly why old to me. So if you live in

(34:02):
an area where that's you know, that's like the zeitgeist,
are like the thing people say you should do in
response to a snake by please don't electrocute yourself trying
to like neutralize the venom. Oh my gosh, don't do that.
It's just gonna hurt you. I love all of these
I love, and by saying I love, I don't actually
love them all these like sort of these myths or

(34:23):
old wives tales about treating things like jellyfish stings where
it's like, oh, just pee on it, and it's like
that that's gonna make it. It's gonna not only is
it probably gonna make it worse, make those like little
neuro toxins activate more. It's just now you've got you're
covered in pete like what yeah, Like you don't need

(34:45):
to go hot wire a car and like fry your
arm after getting bitten by a snake, like just chills,
like wait for the doctor to come. Chill and I
mean once you have called emergency services and they're on
their way, then you chill. Just relax and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you do want treatment though, because rattlesnake venom does do

(35:07):
a doozy when left to its own devices. It depends
on the species of rattlesnake, of course, but their venom
is often highly potent. In the most basic sense. The
way that venom and toxins work in general is they
bind two receptors on cells which blocks them from normal functioning,

(35:29):
and this can result in cell death. So, uh, snake
venom has there is not one recipe for snake venom.
There's not even one recipe for rattlesnake venom. There are
many wonderful recipes for deadly venom. They have a number
of different acting toxins in it. So the most famous,

(35:49):
I suppose rattlesnake, the western diamond back. Uh, it's that
large rattlesnake. It's I think the most typical culprit for
snake bites because they're the most You're the most likely
to encounter these snakes and they're found in southwestern US
and in Mexico. And their venom works primarily through hemotoxins,

(36:10):
so toxins that effect the blood cells and blood vessels,
as well as toxins that can destroy other cells and
muscle tissue. And so this causes internal hemorrhaging and restriction
of blood flow. This is what will cause you the
most harm, and this is you need treatment for this.

(36:32):
While it is not the most potent per sort of
drop of venom of rattlesnakes, they are capable of injecting
more venom per bite due to their large things in
venom sacks. So you don't want to mess with the
western diamond back, but it is very treatable mm hmmm,

(36:52):
yeah yeah um. And one really relieving thing is that
you know when you get when or not. And if
you get bitten by a snake, especially a venomous one,
you don't actually have to identify the snake. All you
have to do is if you go to the doctor,
you're just like I got bitten by a regular, regular,
any sort of snake, venomous snake, and we right exactly

(37:17):
Joe snake. And you can get treated with this with
a singular type one of two types of anti venan uh.
And so that is a huge relief. Back in the
day we used to think that you had to identify
the type of snake and all that, no worries. You
can just go You don't even have to look the
snake in the eye after after it happens, uh, and

(37:37):
the doctor will be able to treat you with crofab
or anna vib um. But what's really important is that Uh.
You know, in the past with with those venoms, people
used to have strong allergic reactions to them. That's not
a case anymore. We've actually figured out how to produce
them where there is a very low, very very low
likelihood of a person having an allergic reaction to them.

(37:59):
So you should theoretically be able to get the maximum
dosage to handle that without any risk of anaphylaxis or anything.
And you know, if that does happen, you're in the
perfect place for it. All you have to do is
get hit with an EPI pin and you're good to go.
The hospital is the best place to have a medical emergency.
But yeah, I mean, so do we still actually use

(38:19):
forces to produce anti venom? Yeah, yeah, we do. It's
it's a wild complicated process, you know. So they essentially
they get sort of like the Napoleon treatment where they
get this very very small amount. Okay, So how the
whole process works is a snake gets milked for their venom,
which essentially means that a snake is taken of venomus

(38:42):
snake like a rattler. Uh, and they are they're made
to inject their venom into a cup or flask. Uh.
That amount of venom, A small amount of it is
injected into a horse, not enough to harm the horse
or anything like that, because you know, they chose an
animal that's incredibly large on top of that, so their
body produces this, uh, this reactive response that produces their

(39:06):
own sort of UM I want to say, essentially an
antibody response. So we're able to take those We basically
take blood from the horse, we spin it, separate out
those antibodies, especially the stuff that's in the plasma I believe, um.
And then we have learned and figured out this process
where we can essentially cut that up. And so in

(39:30):
the past, we would take that and it would have
these cell markers or these markers on them that were
very specific to the horse. And when people would get
that anti venom, our bodies would respond to that. You know,
we've our bodies and say, oh, this is a foreign substance,
and thus our body with our bodies would attack uh
and cause this allergic response. But we figured out a

(39:50):
way to cut out essentially the markers that show that
it is from a horse, so our body just let's say,
let's say ride. It's like all right, great, you gotta pass.
Get on the plane, let's go, and so they you know,
your body can actually utilize, uh, this anti venom as
though we produce it ourselves. It's like the opposite of

(40:10):
a Trojan horse. It's like the Trojan No, this isn't
from a horse. So it's like a giant person walking
in a bunch of horses are inside. That's that's kind
of like the vibe. It's the reverse Trojan horse. Yeah,
Trojan horse, giant person, a lot of horses inside, and
the horses help you. Yeah, exactly, the horse Trojan. I

(40:31):
love that. I love that so much. So we've talked
about rattlesnakes, those little rascally spicy noodles, but they are
not the only pit vipers found in the US, and
I'm going to talk about just a couple of them.

(40:51):
So first I want to talk about the cotton mouth.
They are found in the southeastern US, and they look
kind of so alert to a rattlesnake. I'm sure for
someone who is familiar with rattlesnakes that would be very
offensive for me to say. But they, you know, to
someone that just you know, it's like, oh, that's that's
a snake. Yeah, they kind of look like a rattlesnake,

(41:14):
but they do not have a rattle. Uh. Instead, it
will display its mouth to potential threats. So it is
venomous just like the rattlesnake, and it doesn't want to
waste its venom on you, silly human. It will try
to warn you by coiling itself up and opening its

(41:35):
jaws really wide, which reveals this like kind of white,
little bit pinkish lining in its mouth. And that is
where its name cotton mouth comes from. Yeah. Yeah, And
the cotton mouth will tail rattle on in addition to that,
but instead it's slapping its tail against sticks and leaves

(41:55):
around it, so it produces a similar sound, but just
not with a specialized manchanism. Yeah, exactly, Which is really
interesting when you think about these these are all pit vipers,
there's somewhat related. Do you know if this is like
a case of parallel evolution or did they like have
a common ancestor who had that sort of shaking mechanism. Yeah,

(42:17):
so that is the question, you know, because a lot
of a lot of snakes do it in the US.
I've seen rat snakes do it as well. I've seen
king snakes do it. So I what I wonder is
if snakes have been doing this and then the rattlesnake
just developed a specialized mechanism, or maybe the rattlesnake was

(42:38):
doing it and a lot of snakes are mimicking it.
I genuinely don't know the answer to that um that
one is. I think it's still a question that's up
in the air, though papers may have been published recently
that have some sort of clue or idea. I got
to renew my subscription to Snakes monthly to uh to
find out. But yeah, they also they will also in

(42:59):
their threat display, they will release a foul smell from
their anal glands, and they will hiss. And so they
are like a cat, a skunk, and a snake all
in one wonderful little package. Its Latin name is oh boy,
I'm gonna butcher this, but let's give it a try.
It agg kiss trodon piscivorus piscivorus, Yes kisstrodon piscivorus flows

(43:31):
right off the tongue, which means fish hook fish devour.
Because these are semi aquatic snakes and they will eat fish.
They have even been known to sometimes eat very small
baby alligators. They don't actually so even though they eat fish,

(43:51):
they are really bad at fishing like underwater. They're not
like cruising underwater getting all the fish. They actually rely
on dry sea reasons where water will dry up and
fish or tadpoles or amphibians will get stranded in these
small puddles and then just have a fun little buffet. Yeah. Yeah.

(44:14):
And you know a lot of times people get the
cotton mouths mixed up with water snakes, who are also
aquatic snakes, but you know, they both be enjoyed because
cotton mouths are my favorite venomous snakes. They're absolutely gorgeous
to me. Uh, you know, the black and gold of
their bodies, just like the Saints, let's go New Orleans.
But you know they on top of that, you know,

(44:36):
they're pretty sassy little ones too, And I just I
cherished them. They are beautiful. They are truly gorgeous. I mean,
obviously they you don't want to cuddle these they are venomous, uh,
and you don't want to get bitten. But they have
kind of a sweet personality when it comes to their young.
So there are some observations of female cotton mouths protecting

(44:59):
their newly born litters and they give live birth, so
like and I believe that's also the case for other
rattlesnakes and other pit vipers. They don't lay eggs. They
give birth to live young, and so they will have
these sweet little babies that they want to protect. Not
typically what we think of when it comes to reptiles.
We don't think of them as being active parents. Yeah,

(45:21):
shouts out to them. I I didn't. I wasn't aware
of that, you know, And I love that. I love
that the idea that you know, a lot of a
lot of reptiles, you know a lot of them. You know,
they they leave their young to do their thing on
their own. But some reptiles really do make great caretakers,
at least in the early days of their offsprings live. Yeah. Absolutely.

(45:44):
And at last, we are going to talk about the
Eastern copper head, which is another pit viper. I think
these are gorgeous as well. They are a lovely coppery
color um with brown cross band. I'm probably a little
biased because I am a red head, and so I

(46:04):
just feel solidary for every red head out there. These
are beautiful snakes, uh, And they're they're pretty, they're pretty thick,
so they are not slender snakes. They they are built
pretty thick, which I think makes them pretty cute, and
they live in wooded areas in the southeastern US. They

(46:24):
are venomous, but they are very shy and will freeze
upon seeing a threat. And so what's interesting is their
shyness and their quietness actually makes them a little tricky
as like big blundering humans. Because they're so well camouflaged.
We may accidentally step on them or brush against them,

(46:46):
and they really don't want to bite you, but if
you touch them or like especially if you like get
a foot down on there, they're gonna freak out and
they may bite you. And they do vibrate their tails defensively,
but without the rattle. They are a little harder to hear,
uh than rattlesnakes or larger snakes that have a more

(47:10):
powerful rattling sound. But they are not trying to trick you.
They are just a little little shy guys and they're
trying to hide from you, a little little shy spaghettis. Yeah, Well,
they do operate with some trickery. And what I mean
by that is, you know, earlier I was talking about
the biofluorescence of the rattlesnakes tail. Uh. The copper head

(47:36):
also uses biofluorescence. When they're young, they develop what's called
a coddle, so it's basically a tail lure that they
can use to draw in small animals that are interested
in a worm like looking creature or even a small bird. Uh.
They'll utilize how lure and draw prey to them when

(47:56):
they're really really small and really really young. Yeah, I
love that. I think that's also the case for the
cotton mouth. They have that little little bright you can
actually see it. Um. The UV is really interesting. I
didn't know that, but you can actually see it with
our own, uh inadequate human eyes. It has a kind
of light yellow green tip to it when they're young,

(48:19):
which is interesting. It's almost like training wheels for them
to be able to lure and pray while they're young
and experienced. And so if you are a small animal,
small vertebrate, yes they do try to trick you, but
for totally in danger, yes, but for h for humans,
they just want to hide from you. Uh. And in fact,

(48:41):
they are kind of sweethearts. Sure you don't want to
mess with them, but when they bite, they tend to
issue a warning bite where they don't use much venom
or even a dry bite. I think they are one
of the pit vipers with the highest rate of dry
bites because they really don't want to waste their venom

(49:01):
on you. It seems kind of polite, like pacifist behavior,
but it is kind of in their own self interest
because they just they don't want to use up the
resources of their bite. And because they're so well camouflaged,
they are really hard to see. That is the defensive
mechanism they rely on the most. So they're hoping that

(49:22):
with that combination of camouflage and maybe like a little
warning bite, that you will just walk away and they
are not going to have to waste their venom on you. Yep.
But that being said, even if you do get bidden,
always assume it's going to be are always assume it
is a venoma one. And actually a good way to
tell if you're if you experience a dry bite or

(49:43):
not is it should start hurting pretty immediately, you know,
more than like an ouch. You know. So if you
get bitten by a snake and you experience any sort
of burning pain or any sort of swelling, you got venomated.
So yeah, but you know, I love that cotton mounts
and copper heads they have this really nice because they're
very closely related snakes, they have this very flat top

(50:06):
to their head and it it almost looks like you
could put a little tiny plate on their head and
like a little tiny or maybe a tiny top hat.
Just wonderful. I I cherish these things so much. Two
of my favorites. Plus, uh, you know, cop cotton mouths
or copper heads sorry, also have these little hershey kisses
along their bodies. Yes, they are. They're adorable in my opinion,

(50:31):
and so with with that coloration, you know, they kind
of they really do stand out among the other snakes,
not amongst the leader. Yes, yeah, it's that the coloration
that makes them so pretty when they're against like a
white background, actually really helps them blend in. But yeah, no,
they are absolutely lovely snakes. You don't want to get

(50:52):
bitten by them, and you probably won't if you leave
them alone. But they're very sweet despite they're they're venomous nature.
Before we go, we have to play around of the
Mystery Animal sound game. Every week, I play a Mystery
animal sound and you the listen and you, the guest,

(51:13):
try to guess who is squawking last week's Mystery Animals
sound hint was is it a helicopter, a jackhammer, a lawnmower,
or something from Greek mythology? All right, I'm excited. I'm
ready to go. So Alexei, who do you think is

(51:40):
making that sound? Okay? So what were my options? Again?
It was something from Greek mythology? Yes, is it a helicopter,
a jackhammer, a lawnmower, or something from Greek mythology? Oh
my god, because my my instinct based on yeah, just
just going off of my gut, I want to say

(52:02):
it's it's like a cotton mouth tail rattling, but it
also still could be it could be a jackhammer, but
the way it ended didn't quite sound like a jackhammer. Um,
could I get that one more time? I get that
in my ear. Maybe it's a cotton mouth snake operating

(52:29):
a jackhammer. Its tail is sprung like tiggers. U. I.
The way it ended didn't sound quite like a jackhammer,
but it sounded like one in the middle. But I'm
I think I'm still gonna go with jackhammer. Like something
about that, I like, I want to choose the thing
that doesn't feel right, So jackhammer, jackhammer, it is, well,

(52:51):
it is actually something from Greek mythology. It is the
Hercules beetles wings beating. What. Yeah, so that's awesome, all right.
So it sounds like a lawnmower to me. If I
heard this, I would not think it was coming from
a massive insect. The Hercules beetle is a species of

(53:13):
radnoceros beetle and is found in Central and South America.
It's one of the biggest flying insects in the world.
It has these hard yellow exoskeletal plates over its wings,
and the males have these two massive horns. One comes
from its head, the other comes from its frontal thorax,

(53:34):
and they use these horns in combat with other males
to try and compete for mates. And when they fly
they sound like little jackhammers buzzing through the air. That's
so cool. Something that's really interesting about large beetles like
that is a lot of them spend the majority of

(53:55):
their lifespan as a grub. I think some of those
larger beetles in South America could spin up to about
three years as a grub or in their larval state,
and then they only spend about some of them only
a hundred days as adults, you know. So that that
form that we're familiar with, that hercules beetle and like
those very large ones, that's actually the shortest part of

(54:16):
their lifespan, which is pretty wild to imagine. And they're
absolutely massive larva as well, Like it'll cover your entire hand.
It's really cool. Yeah, I've been bitten by smaller grubs,
and I couldn't imagine getting bitten by that. I could
imagine carrying it around in a little baby bjorn though,
like this is my baby, don't insult us. Yeah. They

(54:40):
pulled back the hood of the and all of a sudden,
it's this big, beautiful grub looking at Yes, So onto
this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is if you
hear this coming from the walls, you're in a heap
of trouble, all right. Could you hear those little little

(55:09):
tapping sounds? Yeah? I don't know what. What is that?
A ghost? Yeah? It's the kids beneath the stairs. Uh
is it a borrowers? It? That is such a good guess.
I remember I remember reading The Borrowers as a kid,

(55:31):
and I just loved leaving out little things for them
like little buttons. Little. Yeah. I did in the movie
have Nathan Lane in it. It did. That was a
terrible movie. I just remember. I remember from that movie
they had one of the little borrowers get like stuck

(55:51):
in like a dog turd, and it was horrifying. It
was horrifying. Did not Oh my god, it off as
a joke, but for like a ten year old that
was just like a nightmare, a total night In real life,
that person would be incredibly sick for long time after that.
These little bar wars getting sepsis from dog poop horrified.

(56:15):
The tiniest doctor possible. Yes, there's a a cuter version
of movie adaptation is like the Secret World of Ariettie.
I think the Muzaki movie. That one's cute. Yeah, I
haven't seen that one, but all the art for it
looks really very it's very cute, much cuter than the
Nathan Line version. Maybe you have a borrowers in the wall.

(56:41):
Let's hope it's that, yeah, instead of whatever else that
could be. You will find out the answer next week
next Wednesday for the next episode of Creature feature Alexei,
thank you so much for joining me today. Where can
people find you? Yeah. So you can find I'm me
online on Twitter at al Hindify that's at a L

(57:05):
H G N D I I F y or if
you like the sound of my voice, you can check
me out on the We out Here podcast where my
co host Allison and I speak to scientists in naturalists
about you know, what they do in science and nature.
But it's primarily a storytelling based podcast where people there
come on tell their stories. Uh, and we all have

(57:27):
a good laugh and enjoy ourselves. And if you're a
person who has a story to tell of science and nature,
hit me up on Twitter or anywhere else. I love
storytelling and I love nature, so it's a wonderful podcast.
Do check that out. Uh. And you can find the
podcast on the internet at Creature feature Pot on Instagram
at creature feak pot on Twitter. That's f teeth head

(57:48):
is something very different. And if you think you know
the answer to this week's mystery animal sound game, write
to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Thank you so much for listening. If you like the show.
When you leave a writing interview, I read them all.
They make my day. I print them out, I paper
the walls with them. Uh. And thank you so much

(58:10):
to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo
Alumina Creature features a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the
I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what.
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.