checkmate’s blog

        SNAKE FACTS….

Largest Snakes- Many people believe that the South American anaconda is the longest snake.There are reports of ana condas up to 36.5m long,but this has never been proved.

US President Theodore Roosevelt once offered $5,000 to anyone who could produce the skin or vertebrae of an anaconda of more than 9m long. The US Wildlife Conservation Societyincreased this offer to $ 50.000, but the prize has never been claimed.

The reticulated or royal python is probably the longest snake at up to 10.7m,but the anaconda may be the heaviest at up to 230kg.

Smallest Snake- The thread snake is rarely longer than 108mm.

The spotted dwarf adder is the smallest venomous snake at 22.8cm long.

Deadliest Snakes-The coastal taipan of Australia injects the most venom per bite with 120mg.Since just 1mg is enough to kill a person ,the venom from a single bite could kill 120 people.     

The common krait’s venom is even more dangerous -only 0.5mg can be fatal.

The fast-moving black mamba of central and southern Africa kills 90 to 100 percent of the people it bites.                      

Up to 3,000 people a year die from snakebites in India and 1,000 in Sri Lanka,where Russell’s viper is the most likely cause.

  This snake once killed as many as 50,000 people per year ,but there have been fewer deaths since antivenin [the antidote to snake venom ] became most widely available.

Dear friends,got this interesting information from the ‘Whitaker’s World of facts’. I liked it so much that couldn’t stop myself from sharing with you all.Hope you all will like it too.

DO YOU KNOW..

Not all plants are safe to eat or even to touch.Nettle sting and other plants,such as euphorbia and poison ivy,may blister your skin.Many quite common plants,including buttercups,are poisonous if eaten because they contain chemicals called phytotoxins. Strangely,some plant poisons [such as curare,digitalis and strychnine] are used in minute quantities to cure illnesses.

1. Potatoes are safe to eat when cooked,but the stems and the leaves of the plants contain a poison called solanine.If potatoes turn green,they may also contain solanine.
2. Ricin is extracted from the seeds of the castor oil plant and is more poisonous than cyanide or snake venom.Even minute doses of ricin can be fatal.
3. Opium is extracted from the juice of a poppy and contains morphine.Small quantities of bothare used legally as pain-relieving medicines and illegally as drugs. Both can easily cause death.
4. The death cap is a highly poisonous mushroom.It is responsible for almost 90per cent of deaths from eating fungi.The poison causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting.
5. Curare is extracted from certain trees and is used by South American Indian tribes to tip their poison arrows when they go hunting.
6. Deadly nightshade is also known as belladona. It contains a poison called atropine. Less than ten milligrams could kill a child.
7. Nicotine is a yellow oily liquid found in tobacco. About 50 milligrams of nicotine would kill an adult within minutes.
8. The leaves of the purplefoxglove contain digitalis and eating just a few can be fatal. Digitalis is used in tiny doses to treat people suffering from heart desease.
9. Strychnine comes from the koochla tree,which grows in Myanmar and India.It is one of the most deadly poisons known.