Abstract
Medically important snakes have fangs at the front of their mouths which enable them to inject venom secreted by the parotid glands (Plate 27). These are the ‘poisonous’ snakes of which there are three families — elapids (neurotoxic), seasnakes (myotoxic) and vipers (vasculotoxic). Elapids are landsnakes with short fixed fangs (Plate 28). Seasnakes have very short fixed fangs and characteristic flat tails. (Plate 29). Vipers have long erectile fangs (Plate 27), triangular heads and, usually, short fat bodies. Vipers are subdivided into crotaline or pit vipers, having a thermosensitive pit between eye and nose, and viperine vipers, without pits. The pit detects warmblooded prey in the dark.
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© 1981 Update Books Ltd
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Reid, H.A. (1981). Poisoning due to Snake Bite. In: Vale, J.A., Meredith, T.J. (eds) Poisoning Diagnosis and Treatment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6763-5_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6763-5_31
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-906141-82-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-6763-5
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