Venomous Snakes of Udon Thani

[beer monkey]

Not in Udon, but snake related..

On Friday Morning, Khun Sirintip aged 27 was rushed to the Queen Sirigit Hospital in Sattahip after sustaining a snake bite as she was harvesting vegetables from her garden. It was raining at the time and Khun Sirintip suddenly felt a sharp pain in her right leg. To avoid any poison travelling throughout her body she tied a piece of rope just above the bite in an attempt to stop circulation to the foot. At Hospital she was given anti-venom and is now doing well. She was praised by doctors for her quick thinking to avoid the poison from spreading throughout her body.

http://pattayaone.net/news/2009/june/ne ... 52_3.shtml

Didn't mention what snake it was, but i thought you needed to know as to which anti-venom to administer..

[wazza]

Michael C

Do they use the ELIZA kits in Thailand to identify the poison etc

Also what is the current first aid teaching for snake bites in Thailand, im familar with Australian techniques, but different regions have different treatments according to the classification etc

[Michael C]

Benzman, that snake is an Oligodon fasciolatus (Banded Kukri Snake), see banding on the back, attempting to eat a Duttaphrynus melanostictus (Black Spined Toad), most common toad in Southeast Asia. The white liquid coming out of the skin where it was bitten, from the parotoid glands (above and behind the eyes) and below the tympanum are rather strong toxins, which are much more dangerous than many snake venoms, if ingested.

Wazza, they have used ELISA in Thailand, but I am not sure how wide spread the use is, especially in more remote areas away from Bangkok. Next time I visit the snake farm/antivenin laboratory in Bangkok, I will ask them. As far as I know, most Thais are not taught about first aid for snake bites. Most of the first aid taught in the past has proved to be of more harm than good. The best thing to do is go to hospital for a venomous snake bite.

[mak]

This is the tree snake after eviction from our living room.

[polehawk]

Saw one just like it yesterday on our property. Looks like your snake didn't have a problem clinging to the wall, mak. Wondered if our snake can climb up and over our 7 to 9 foot wall with smooth faced blocks but doubt it. Friend suggests that snakes are able to "jump" or propel themselves from trees over the wall. Might be something to that so will trim branches of trees outside our walls.

Anyway, our dogs found the tree snake yesterday while I was walking with them around the property. This type of snake CAN move fast. I was about 10 feet behind the dogs and snake made a beeline straight towards me! I wasn't carrying a stick or anything and wasn't sure what kind of snake it was. What would you have done? I skedaddled next to the dogs. Snake kept going to our water pump house and hid in there someplace so left it alone. Thanks to Michael C's input, I'm not too worried now about these non-poisonous snakes although my dogs (pit bull and Thai ridgeback) will kill them if they get the chance.

[Michael C]

The guess from the description you gave was right, it is a Chrysopelea ornatus (Golden Tree Snake).

Yes, polehawk, they can slowly climb walls and up the side of the house by using the small imperfections in the smoothness of the cement. Their ventral scales, the wide scales on the belly, have special keels on the lateral sides which allow them to grip onto seemingly smooth surfaces. It is a morphological adaptation (evolutionary selection) to climb up trees with smooth trunks, which is found in the three snake species of this genus found in Thailand.

Your friend is correct about their movements. I have observed them in the field using a spring-like motion to spring to other branches and trees. Their ribs are capable spreading out laterally, giving them a greater lateral surface area enabling them to glide through the air, but with a much faster fall rate than Draco, the flying (gliding) lizards found in the forest. Yes, Thailand has 'flying' snakes, 'flying' lizards, and 'flying' frogs.

[sappiajk]

I just killed this snake the other day in my neighbor's yard. It was about 7 feet long. Anyone have a clue what type of snake it would be? Sorry if the picture is not that clear, but it was raining.

[Benzman]

I finde this one

[Michael C]

Sappiajk, your snake is a Ptyas mucosus (Common or Oriental Rat snake). Their pattern often mimics an Ophiophagus hannah (individual Cobra). It is completely harmless, except for the large teeth with the large sizes that it attains- over 10' (320cm).

Benzman, that is another Xenochrophis flavipunctatus. It appears that in our area we have ones with orange blotches and those without these orange blotches. I have yet to catch enough to determine whether this is a characteristic of sexual dimorphism.

[Benzman]

thx MC i find them here in Udon at the bulding place for mingolf and climbingwall near to Global

if i find more i try to take photos of them

[arjay]

I spotted this snake under the belly of a dinosaur at Phu Foilom a couple of days ago. Couldn't see it's head though.

Saw this overhead under the belly of a dinosaur at Phu Foilom

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[arjay]

It may be stating the obvious, but I was recently reminded of the wisdom of wearing suitable footwear when walking away from roads etc, - on paths and in parks or similar.

I had gone to Phu Foilom, wearing only my usual open sandals, and was being fairly vigilant as the place was crawling with ants and as we had seen a snake on one of the dinosaurs. As we got to the top of a rocky climb, I felt a sharp jabbing pain on my big toe, and instinctively kicked out vigorously, initially for some reason thinking it was ants, though it was a much sharper jab than an ant bite. Something (crash) landed in the adjacent grass/undergrowth, and when I looked to see what it was, I saw a Tukay looking up at me. (see photo).

I had a half inch cut on my big toe, which was bleeding, and blood was spattered on an adjacent tree, as well as a drop on the Tukay's nose.

I really hadn't seen it, and can only guess I must have either trod on it, or kicked it, or almost done so, whilst distracted by the view.

As a precaution I later took myself to a hospital in a nearby village where, they cleaned and dressed the cut, and gave me a course of anti-biotics, as a precaution, oh and of course some paracetamol - all for 180 baht!

Upon reflection, I realised that it would have saved me a lot of hassle, and risk had it been a snake, by wearing sensible shoes or boots or even trainers.

The culprit

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[saint]

good advise indeed arjay . weve got one of those living in our garden shed , hence the wife wont go in there untill i kill it , which i refuse to do . besides its quite a timid thing and always hides when it sees me , maybe it heard the wife telling me to kill it ! . but i have been led to believe that if they do bite , you literaly have to cut there heads of to get them to release , which ive always put down to thai overkill on anything that looks slightly dangerous . your story does confirm its a myth . but it also comfirms they can give a nasty bite . so i will certainly be a little more respectful of the little critter in future .

[Michael C]

Arjay, your snake was Chrysopelea ornata, a snake that I mentioned rather recently at the top of the page and previous page of this thread. It is a very inoffensive snake.

The gecko is Gekko gecko and they a really hard bite. You are lucky it did not hold on, because they do not let go for a very long time.

This person was bit on the finger and it held on. We held it under water to the point of drowning; it would not let go. We put it in ice water; it would not let go. We tried to lever its mouth open using the handle of a fork; its mouth bent around it and it held on. He eventually had to rip the 30cm gecko off of his finger.

They are usually very shy, but if a finger or toe is brought to them and they feel threatened, they will bite and bite very hard. They are very nice to have around, because they eat large and medium sized insects along with small rodents (pretty much anything smaller than it that they can swallow).

[saint]

so my mrs was right then ? dont you just hate it when that happens ? O K , now i know , i will certainly treat it with much respect , but i still wont kill it . i think ill call him winston . my mate had a bulldog called winston and there the same , bite you , and lock on !!!!!

[fussychunk]

This ended up being tea

[Techland]

I am sorry to say this but IMHO the moderators did a tremendous job to hide this really helpful and important thread at the most unlogical place. I just had a poisonous snake in my garden and searched for about 10 minutes until I rediscovered this thread. And I would have never found if I had not known about it before.

IMHO it should be placed in Topics - General - Announcements (wrong name but sticky and easy to see). Plus it should be sticky on the front page.

[jimboLV]

I went to the search box at the top and typed in "snakes" and it led me to this thread in 0.23 seconds. The list of topics is a dead loss as there are too many undescriptive and ambiguous titles. I NEVER try to find something by going through the list of topics, unless I'm just surfing around not looking for anything in particular.

Use the search box. Google is your friend.

[beer monkey]

It is certainly worthy of a sticky

[Michael C]

Fussychunk, sorry, I was out in the field and running around academia in Bangkok for the past 10+ days. Your snake is a type of Ptyas sp., but which one, I cannot determine without seeing the whole snake and the head. Ptyas is a genus of Asian rat snake, so it is not dangerous.