Puff Adder venom is cytotoxic. This can cause swelling, pain, blisters and tissue damage. Seek medical attention as quickly as possible. This venomous snake has large hinged front fangs that are capable of a painful bite and deep venom penetration.
Puff adder venom contains a thrombolytic enzyme and causes tissue necrosis, hypotension, coagulopathy, thrombocytopenia, and spontaneous bleeding. We report our experience in treating a patient with a puff adder bite injury in the absence of an antivenom, using a combination of HBO therapy and rTM.
Venom yield is typically 150–350 mg, with a maximum of 750 mg. Brown (1973) mentions a venom yield of 180–750 mg. About 100 mg are thought to be enough to kill a healthy adult human male, with death occurring after 25 hours. In humans, bites from this species can produce severe local and systemic symptoms.
An adult Puff Adder may have enough venom to kill 4-5 men and studies show severe envenomations have a 52% mortality rate. The utilization of antivenom dramatically reduces the mortality rate but deaths have occurred when inadequate amounts of antivenom (i.e. four vials or less) have been administered.
These effects are very unpleasant but easily treated. However, adder bites are potentially very serious and should not be under-estimated. In a small proportion of cases, adder bite can lead to severe effects requiring extensive hospital treatment. Although exceedingly unlikely, adder bite can be fatal.
Inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus)
This venom is by far the most toxic of any snake. It is estimated that just one bite contains enough lethality to kill at least 100 adult humans! Compared to the saw-scaled viper, however, it doesn't actually kill very many at all, with only a few recorded fatalities ever.
The inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) is considered the most venomous snake in the world with a murine LD 50 value of 0.025 mg/kg SC. Ernst and Zug et al. 1996 list a value of 0.01 mg/kg SC, which makes it the most venomous snake in the world in their study too. They have an average venom yield of 44 mg.
Puff Adder venom is potently cytotoxic, causing severe pain, swelling, blistering and in many cases severe tissue damage. Polyvalent antivenom is effective.
The young puff adders, as with all snakes, are capable of delivering venom from a bite right from birth and should not be taken lightly.
Slow as they may seem, puff adders can strike extremely fast from an S-like coiled position- and at . 25 of a second this is arguably the fastest striking snake in the world. The combination of camouflage and speed leads to many bites although only a small percentage are ever fatal.
Yet many would-be predators of puff adders use their noses rather than their eyes to locate their prey. Jackals, wild dogs, hyenas, mongooses, genets and so on should all be able to sniff out puff adders with ease. But they can't.
Death adders live in Australia, where there are no vipers. This deadly species is one of the fastest striking snakes in the world and it has great camouflage. Learn more about death adders in our video! You will see a wild Common death adder in it's habitat and how we found it!
Puff adders make a loud sighing hiss noise to warn off a potential predator. They also use chemical communication to attract mates. Puff adders are ambush predators. Rather than hunting for prey, they hide and wait for it to come to them.
The adder is the UK's only venomous snake, but its venom is generally of little danger to humans: an adder bite can be painful and cause a inflammation, but is really only dangerous to the very young, ill or old. If bitten, medical attention should be sought immediately, however.
Puff adders (Bitis arietans), like many other snakes, hiss as part of their defensive repertoire.
Adder bites can be severe but are rarely fatal in dogs. However, they can make a dog very ill and should be treated as an emergency. If you suspect that your dog has been bitten by an adder, you should take them to your vet immediately.
Puff adders are most active at night, preferring to shelter during the day from the sun. They ambush small rodents and birds, and even other snakes. They kill their prey by biting it, and then leaving the prey to die. The venom is cytotoxic, which attacks the blood cells and tissues.
In this regard we have good data of Puff Adder lengths for Southern Africa that has been collected by scientists for over 100 years and the maximum length reported for the region is around 1.3 m but much longer elsewhere in Africa reportedly up to 1.8 m.
The results from the other snake species were very different. Both dogs and meerkats were able match pairs of these smelly snake scents around 90% of the time. This makes the puff adder the first terrestrial vertebrate species for which chemical crypsis – the art of being scentless – has been demonstrated.
The only standardized specific treatment currently available for neutralizing the medically important effects of snake venom toxins is antivenom [8,9,12].
Some promising research results have also been reported for administering the drug nasally as a "universal antivenom" for neurotoxic snakebite treatment. A monovalent antivenom is specific for one toxin or species, while a polyvalent one is effective against multiple toxins or species.
The venom of black mambas is highly neurotoxic and contains a combination of α-neurotoxins, which induce postsynaptic blockade of the neuromuscular junctions, and dendrotoxins, which inhibit the voltage-dependent potassium channels, enhancing the release of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction, thus producing a ...
“Most snakes can swim fairly well and puff adders are very lively snakes. With regard to distance, they can swim and then float on the water when they get tired.”
The puff adder (B. arietans and others) is a large extremely venomous snake found in the semiarid regions of Africa and Arabia. It is so named because it gives warning by inflating its body and hissing loudly.
Their cryptic colouration and reluctance to move out of the way makes them South Africa's most dangerous snake as they are often trodden on. Puff adders are long lived, maybe as much as 20 years.