It took Bill Haast, a leading expert on antivenins, 69,000 milkings of coral snakes to get enough venom to create an antivenin, which was one pint. The story of how coral snake antivenin was developed is astonishing. each year, only about 20 are from coral snakes, and some of those are dry bites. Even with that record, you’re still more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than a strike by a venomous snake. over the last hundred years to see that rattlesnakes are responsible for 90% of them. Indeed, all you have to do is scan down the CDC records of snake bite deaths in the U.S. Rattlers, she says, are the ones to worry about. She and her husband have enormous real-world experience working with venomous snakes. Shisk-Saling is also founder and director of the Reptile Hospice Sanctuary of Texas in Snook. I hope no evil herpetologist is trying to genetically crossbreed the two. A rattlesnake will inject you with about 800 milligrams – a full hypodermic syringe – of poison in one bite while a coral snake will hit you with only about 2% of that volume. The only consolation is that the volume of venom is small. They latch on and won’t let go -– chewing on you – to deliver their venom.”Īnd that venom, she said, is 20 times more toxic than rattlesnake venom. They are gorgeous snakes but deceptive in their apparent docile nature. Teresa Shisk-Saling, a licensed veterinary technician who used to work with snakes at Texas A&M’s Vet School, agrees. 90% of coral snake bites occur when people pick them up. His best advice is to never pick up a coral snake. He said that outside of Texas, in South America, the rule often does not hold up either. For one thing, thanks to antivenin, it is highly unlikely a bite will kill you, and secondly, there are albinos and black corals that break the rule. They are shy snakes and will seek to get away from you.Ĭole doesn’t like the saying, “red on yellow will kill a fellow” because it’s wrong in two ways. Tim Cole, a herpetologist who owns the Austin Reptile Service, and who does educational lectures on snakes of all kinds, told me that coral snakes are not dangerous in the sense that they will not get aggressive with you in the wild, like rattlers will. The Air Force kindly dispatched a fighter jet to rush the antivenin to him. There wasn’t enough antivenin to treat him locally, but they did find some at a zoo in Louisiana. In Texas, one of the most interesting cases occurred back in 1966 when Boy Scout Randy Wooten, was bitten by a coral snake near Fort Worth. Coral snake venom is a neurotoxin, a cousin of cobra venom. He died within a few hours of respiratory suffocation. A Florida man died in 2006, but that was because he didn’t go for help. No one in Texas has died of a coral snake bite since the antivenin was produced in small amounts in the early 1960s. You can say either, or either, and be correct. “Run and tell an adult,” I said.īy the way, antivenin and antivenom are synonymous. I showed the kids pictures and told them not to touch or tease them. They’d need between three and five vials, so it would be physically and financially devastating. And the antivenin they would need, if we could get it, would come in at just under $10,000 a vial. If any were bitten by a Texas Coral Snake – though they probably wouldn’t die – they would be critically ill for a couple of days. Their presence troubles me because there are often young children playing in my yard. Both times I relocated them deep into the woods nearby. Twice in the last three years I’ve seen good-sized coral snakes in my yard.
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