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African snakes: species diversity, top 10 most poisonous, description, habitat, species features, reproduction, life cycle, characteristic signs and features

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African snakes: species diversity, top 10 most poisonous, description, habitat, species features, reproduction, life cycle, characteristic signs and features
African snakes: species diversity, top 10 most poisonous, description, habitat, species features, reproduction, life cycle, characteristic signs and features

Video: 10 Most Bizarre Recently Discovered Species! 2024, June

Video: 10 Most Bizarre Recently Discovered Species! 2024, June
Anonim

Africa is a mysterious continent, where there is a lot of "very-most" on our planet. Starting from the driest place, the fastest mammal (cheetah) and ending with one of the most venomous snakes in the world - African black mamba. According to official statistics, snakes of the Black Continent have killed more than 100 thousand people and continue to kill today. The ten most poisonous reptiles, their features and the presence of an antidote are described in this article.

Do not go to Africa

About 160 species of snakes live on this continent. And only 10% of them are armed with deadly poisons for humans. It is important to remember that although most African snakes are impressive in size, humans are not prey to them. These reptiles are careful and do not like meeting with us. Often the attack is provoked, and it doesn’t matter if you teased the snake or caught it by negligence, the bite of the African snake will be swift, and the action of the poison is inevitable.

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snake poison

Snake venom, which is a mixture of organic and inorganic substances produced by special glands behind the eyes, has a different effect on the human body:

  • Cytotoxic poisons destroy the cells of the body.
  • Neurotoxic - affect the cells of the nervous system.
  • Hemotoxic poisons disrupt the blood coagulation system.

There are antidotes in the world for almost all snake venoms. That is why today a snake bite is not a 100% sentence. But with snake bites, it is important not so much the presence of an antidote, but the speed of its administration.

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The best

We give a rating of the most poisonous snakes on the African continent. Let's start with the most dangerous:

  • Black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis).
  • Green mamba (Dendroaspis angusticeps) - African snakes (photo presented in the article), which will be described in more detail below.
  • Gabon or cassava (Bitis gabonica) - a snake from the family of vipers with a large motley head.
  • Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) - one of the representatives of the cobra genus, lives in northern Africa.

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  • Another cobra is Cape (Naja nivea). Its area is southern Africa. This cobra has an equally even amber color (in the previous photo).
  • Sand efa (Echis carinatus) is a poisonous African snake. It is from her bites that more people die in Africa than from the bites of everyone else.
  • The poisonous African snake of the family of the Aspids (Micrurus). Very not friendly and aggressive. Coral, Ordinary, Egyptian and other types of aspids are found. From a bite, a person dies within 4 minutes.
  • The African boomslang (Dispholidus typus) is a very dangerous snake, from the bite of which the famous zoologist Karl Paterson died in 1957.
  • The African noisy viper (Bitis arietans) is a large (up to 2 meters) snake that swims perfectly. It is a viviparous snake that gives birth to up to 100 new snakes.
  • Aquatic rhinoceros viper (Bitis nasicornis) - leads an aquatic lifestyle and is distinguished by two nose horns.

Svartmamba - completely black

Even if you do not know that the black mamba is poisonous, its appearance inspires horror. She really is almost completely black. There are individuals of a dark olive or saturated gray color, but when she opens her mouth, she has black inside and even her teeth are black. Black African snake can reach 3 meters in length.

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Very fast (speeds up to 11 km / h), aggressive snake. Her bites are multiple, she pursues the offender, inflicting repeated wounds. In one bite - 400 ml of poison. For a person, 15 ml is enough to die within 20 minutes from paralysis of the respiratory muscles in the event of the toxin entering the bloodstream or excruciating death within 7-15 hours with bites in the limbs. There is an antidote, but before its appearance, absolutely everyone died from the bite of this snake. That is why in Africa it is also called the "kiss of death."

Mambas often fall in love with landfills near human dwellings, so the usual removal of garbage in Africa can be quite an extreme event.

Grunmamba

That is what the eastern green mamba is called in its homeland. The smallest of all mambas - males can be up to 2.5 meters in length. The back of the snake is emerald green, and the abdomen is yellow. The eyes of this African snake are also green. He leads a daily lifestyle, hiding in shrubs and trees. It feeds on small birds, mammals, lizards, frogs. In clutch 8-18 eggs.

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Shy and careful. Sometimes settles even in thatched roofs of houses. When a person appears, he tries to hide. The poison is neurotoxic and weaker than the black mamba, but stronger than the Indian cobra. There is an antidote, but it must be administered very quickly, otherwise respiratory paralysis will occur within 30 minutes.

Boomslang

Unlike mambas, this snake is not so big - up to 1.5 meters. It belongs to the subfamily of false snakes and the poisonous teeth in it are not in front of the mouth, but in the depths. The habitat is shrubs and trees, so the body color of these snakes is very diverse - from light olive to almost black. Lives in foliage and on branches; the snake eats birds and their eggs, chameleons and frogs.

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Boomslang venom hemotoxic action. Death occurs from internal and external bleeding. However, it does not have an instant effect, and the effect increases during the day. There is an antidote, but more often deaths occur due to negligence, when people do not attach importance to the bite of this snake.

Or you can cry with bloody tears

Our rating also included another very dangerous snake in Africa - sandy Efa (Echis carinatus), a relative of the usual viper. Their area is sandy savannah, where it moves in a very unusual way - sideways. This is a relatively small snake (up to 70 centimeters), which, when in danger, coils up and makes a chilling sound of the friction of small ribbed scales against each other.

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Annoying and dangerous, it inflicts an instant blow and injects a victim of 12 grams of venom of hemotoxic and cytotoxic effects. Already 5 grams of its poison is enough to open bleeding in all mucous membranes, and the tissues at the site of the bite die in a matter of hours. There is an antidote, but even those who escaped more often remain disabled with amputated limbs. In Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, there is a subspecies of sandy efa - Central Asian. The venom of this snake is actively used in pharmacology for the manufacture of drugs that regulate blood coagulation.