Rattlesnakes get you a'feared because they're poisonous ... but, darlin', you may not realize in how many ways they're poisonous. Snakes haven't packed a single type of venom over the last twenty million years but rather they have tried many and they savor them for which delivers the kill shot they most prefer. Rattlesnakes had multiple toxins but lost some and kept others.
For example, some American rattlesnakes opted in favor of a neurological poison while others differentiated in favor of toxins which destroy muscle. You've got to admire that flexibility, right? (Science Daily: How rattlesnakes got, and lost, their venom)
This is not English 101 and we can skip the abysmal wording of the title. The reality is they got multiple kinds of venom and kept the kinds they preferred in their evolutionary paths.
No matter how twisted the question, somewhere there's a scientist who is fascinated by it and venom is really intriguing for the kids who graduated past making pipe bombs in high school chemistry. These types still like the idea of dangerous things but best without the accompaniment of Federal prison time and, ideally, no dead people.
Sure enough, if someone starts talking about rattlesnake venom, you will immediately start backing away, right?
These scientists don't as their eyes light up and, oh, yes, tell me more about this deadly poisonous stuff the snakes 'invented' and which will kill me faster than a never-ending diet of political speeches.
(Ed: rattlesnakes are more merciful than politicians. At least it's fast.)
Quite so.
There are areas of scientific fascination since rattlesnakes aren't the oldest venomous snakes and they arose maybe twelve to fourteen million years ago. Within a couple of million years, they tried different venoms and finally decided I'll use this or I'll use that but different rattlers in America went with different toxins. That kind of split will grab scientists every time as they ask why, why, why.
Scientists often get poetic about matters of this nature and they may say 'two million years is an evolutionary eye blink' but don't let them do this. If it gets too far out of hand with the poetry, the next thing you've got is Carl Sagan and be careful ... he may start singing. Think of Neil DeGrasse Tyson covering Paul Robeson songs and you know how far it can go.
Two million years is one long ass time and it's unimaginably long for such temporally-challenged beasties as humans who can barely scrabble ourselves around the planet for a century. However, in those two million years a great many things happened and one of them was more change than was observed in snakes in equivalent periods of time for snakes during any other aspect of evolution.
Naturally, the scientist asks why.
Unknown if this article will have encouraged any interest in rattlesnake venom but if you need some then y'all give us a call down here in Texas. We have plenty of rattlers down here.
- Insert gratuitous political cheapshot about sending most of them to Washington -
For example, some American rattlesnakes opted in favor of a neurological poison while others differentiated in favor of toxins which destroy muscle. You've got to admire that flexibility, right? (Science Daily: How rattlesnakes got, and lost, their venom)
This is not English 101 and we can skip the abysmal wording of the title. The reality is they got multiple kinds of venom and kept the kinds they preferred in their evolutionary paths.
No matter how twisted the question, somewhere there's a scientist who is fascinated by it and venom is really intriguing for the kids who graduated past making pipe bombs in high school chemistry. These types still like the idea of dangerous things but best without the accompaniment of Federal prison time and, ideally, no dead people.
Sure enough, if someone starts talking about rattlesnake venom, you will immediately start backing away, right?
These scientists don't as their eyes light up and, oh, yes, tell me more about this deadly poisonous stuff the snakes 'invented' and which will kill me faster than a never-ending diet of political speeches.
(Ed: rattlesnakes are more merciful than politicians. At least it's fast.)
Quite so.
There are areas of scientific fascination since rattlesnakes aren't the oldest venomous snakes and they arose maybe twelve to fourteen million years ago. Within a couple of million years, they tried different venoms and finally decided I'll use this or I'll use that but different rattlers in America went with different toxins. That kind of split will grab scientists every time as they ask why, why, why.
Scientists often get poetic about matters of this nature and they may say 'two million years is an evolutionary eye blink' but don't let them do this. If it gets too far out of hand with the poetry, the next thing you've got is Carl Sagan and be careful ... he may start singing. Think of Neil DeGrasse Tyson covering Paul Robeson songs and you know how far it can go.
Two million years is one long ass time and it's unimaginably long for such temporally-challenged beasties as humans who can barely scrabble ourselves around the planet for a century. However, in those two million years a great many things happened and one of them was more change than was observed in snakes in equivalent periods of time for snakes during any other aspect of evolution.
Naturally, the scientist asks why.
Unknown if this article will have encouraged any interest in rattlesnake venom but if you need some then y'all give us a call down here in Texas. We have plenty of rattlers down here.
- Insert gratuitous political cheapshot about sending most of them to Washington -
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