Venomous Snakes of Udon Thani

[Funman]

I was watching a program the other night about snakes and it was mentioned that the fatality rate for Banded Krait bites used to be 80% but with the development of antivenin it is only 50%. Very comforting to know. I know we have them here in Thailand and they are nasty critters too. That's the second program that I've seen stating the 50% survival rate. Before I went to VN we had a class on dangers other than the VC/NVA and they called them two steppers. Sit down, bend over and kiss your a** goodbye.

[Brian Davis]

Yesterday we found a beautiful metallic blue snake inside a rotten piece of wood ...... We were also so lucky to find a nest of black scorpions under the rotten wood .........

I'm a bit late on this one, but whilst I can understand your enthusiasm at finding beautiful creatures, I'm not so certain that with my limited understanding of their danger or not, I could call it 'lucky'. But no, this topic is great for educating me just a little.

[SanukJoe]

I'm with you Brian, totally "not done" for a farang. Thais catch scorpions to eat them, up to them it's their country.

Farang want to eat scorpion? Buy them so the Thai earns some money.
Or forget about scorpions and go to McDonald's for some fine dining...

By the way: scorpions in Thailand are not venomous.

Joe

[SanukJoe]

Last week something funny happened to me whilst watching the 1988 movie "Platoon Leader", a Vietnam film I've seen three times in the last 20 years, not the worst of all the VN films IMO.

There is a scene with a snake, hidden under a lid that closes the entrance of an underground VC hiding place.
The inexperienced lieutenant wants to lift the lid with his hands, the experienced sergeant stops him and lift the lid with his gun, out comes a "dangerous and venomous snake" shock all over. The snake is killed and the film goes on.

Now the remarkable thing: the snake was a LAOTIAN WOLF SNAKE, totally harmless!

I wonder if the film director wanted to have a no-risk scene using a harmless snake or didn't he know at all what snake it was? Maybe a Thai told him: sanake vely vely dangelous!
(Or was the Laotian wolf snake an actor playing his role as a venomous snake?)

Just my thoughts.

Joe

[Farang1]

By the way: scorpions in Thailand are not venomous.

I'll differ on that 1, sir. All scorpions are venomous. Not all are lethal, though. Some will have some localized swelling around the sting. Others will make you sick. Some, you better get to medical help ASAP.

[Michael C]

Funman, keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of "documentaries" shown on television anymore are hardly educational; they are primarily for entertainment, full of errors/misinformation and gross exaggeration, particularly much of what is shown on Discovery, Animal Planet and last, but certainly not least, National Geographic. Even the more respectable documentary producers, such as NOVA (US), BBC (UK) and some German public television producers (ARD, ZDF, WDR) are prone to exaggeration to make things more entertaining. Unfortunately, the general public does not want to be educated anymore; they want to be entertained.

That being said, 50% would not even be the rate for some of the most deadly venomous snakes, if someone promptly sought out proper medical attention. One has to consider many factors into coming up with a percent chance, such as a number of bites are "dry bites" (bites where no venom is injected), in many defensive bites only a small amount of venom is injected (its primary purpose is not for defense, but for taking down prey) and a great percentage of people recover from venomous bites without antivenin (many people are allergic to antivenin, particularly those that have been treated multiple times), should a bite victim of a krait survive the first 48 hours, the chances of recovery are good.

Many people have asked me about some kind of "two step" snake. There are none. No one is going to fall over dead within a couple of minutes from a venomous snake bite, unless they fall over dead from self-induced shock. If someone is really interested in what happens after they are bitten by a krait where there is no medical attention, there is a very detailed account of what happened with Joe Slowinski in 2001 (California Academy of Sciences expedition in the mountains of northern Myanmar), the book is called "The Snake Charmer" by Jamie James. In the case of Joe Slowinski, it took nearly a couple hours for symptoms to start up and almost 30 hours before he died.

[Funman]

Mike, I did see that program on the tube about Joe Slowinski. I think two step referred to: Step #1 Sit down. Step #2, kiss your a** goodbye. In the case of Joe, he got careless and stuck his hands where they shouldn't have been and he should have known better. I saw one last night featuring that Austin Stevens guy. He was looking for Australian individual Browns and was lifting old pieces of corrugated steel roofing off the floor in an old barn by grabbing them by the edge and lifting them. I grew up in the country in N. California and learned at an early age (made it through the stupid stage I think, but jury's still out on that one, LOL) that that's a big no no. I do watch the program "Venom ER" and yes some peoples systems react differently to the toxins/venom and the anti venom. I'm fascinated with snakes but have a healthy respect for them also. They have only lost one patient but that was because he had heart problems and expired from them. Went pig hunting in N. CA. with a friend of mine and he hid his keys under the bark of an old fallen tree. When he went to retrieve them he started to stick his fingers up under it to get them. I stopped him and peeled the bark back and sure enough there was a scorpion hiding in the same place his keys were.

[SanukJoe]

Farang1 wrote:
All scorpions are venomous. Not all are lethal, though. Some will have some localized swelling around the sting. Others will make you sick. Some, you better get to medical help ASAP.


From Siam-Info http://www.siam-info.de:

Danger level: harmless

The scorpions in Thailand do have poison, however it is so mild that it is comparable to the sting of a bee or a wasp. The sting is painful but harmless, however some people might develop an allergic reaction. The sting should therefore be immediately disinfected.

For conservation reasons please do not kill these animals, but catch them and free them into the wild.

[vientiane]

Hi all
this has been a very informative blog.Over here in Vientiane i found this chap having a nap in our back garden(well underground a few inches)beside the underground water sewer.i decided not to disturb it from its nap so all i got was a shot of was of its back. went and had a peek a few hours later and it was gone.Would it be a rainbow snake? harmless?
Cheers.

[Michael C]

It is a Xenopeltis unicolor (Sunbeam Snake). Yes, it is completely harmless. Not only has one never tried to bite me, I do not know anyone who has ever been bitten by one; although seeing how they go after food, I was careful not to have handled any small animals before handling them. See the last page for more information on them.

[vientiane]

cheers Mr.C.

[Brian Davis]

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Yes, yes even I know it's not a snake.
But look what walked in our front gate yesterday!
I couldn't quite get the photos I wanted.
About 1 metre long, body 1/3, tail 2/3. Very slow moving, seemed lethargic. It showed no particular urgency to escape me. In fact, seemed to doze off on a couple of occasions. Its' skin maybe not in the best condition.
Fortunately, no dogs about.
The Poo Yai Ban, next door neighbour, got a guy to take it off to the Wat, where the monks would take care.
Otherwise, I'm told, might have been on someone's menu last night.

[Kevro]

Hmmm

Have seen the back legs of those down the market, don't know where the rest was. Someone actually showed me there shopping later which included one of those drumsticks.

Basically Thais eat anything that moves and some that don't.

Kevro

PS Seen similar reptiles in Australian mine sites and are called Bungarras if my memory serves me correct. Chances are its a different animal up here.

[Farang1]

Cool monitor, dude.

Very slow moving, seemed lethargic. It showed no particular urgency to escape me.

They can move when they want to.

Good to have around to control such unwanted critters as mice, rats, cats, soi dogs etc.

[Flo]

intruder1.jpg

intruder2.jpg

.. Very slow moving, seemed lethargic. It showed no particular urgency to escape me. In fact, seemed to doze off on a couple of occasions. Its' skin maybe not in the best condition.
...

The lady living opposite of us fits into that description perfectly! :-"

[Brian Davis]

intruder1.jpg

intruder2.jpg

.. Very slow moving, seemed lethargic. It showed no particular urgency to escape me. In fact, seemed to doze off on a couple of occasions. Its' skin maybe not in the best condition.
...

The lady living opposite of us fits into that description perfectly! :-"

Yes, I had to do a double-take to make sure it wasn't the mum-in-law. But she had already arrived, chewing those leaves/paste, a bright red mouth and spitoon to hand!

[SnakeChaser]

Okay, thanks anyway. So I'll show passion and keep on waiting

I guess for someone experienced with snakes it shouldn't be a problem to identify. Only, I don't understand, why I can't find any pictures really similar to our ones on the internet. It not the first time, I see this kind of snake here.

Another nice animal I had to wait 4 years before I've seen it first time (I even asked many people in the past if they have seen already at least once in their life, but nothing). And then it happened. I had this guest about 3 weeks ago in front of our house. Our dogs found it. I think I even not need to say what it is, the photos should say enough

That is one of two nearly identical species of tarantula - it's either a Theraphosa Apophysis (Pink-footed Golaith) or a Theraphosa Blondi (Golaith Birdeater.) They are the largest of all spiders, capable of reaching leg-spans of up to a foot, and weighing up to 7 or 8 ounces iirc. However, I'm 98% sure it is a Golaith Birdeater, as the Pink-Footed Golaith usually has brightly-colored bands on its feet.

[SanukJoe]

Two corrections:

1) The name is Goliath and not Golaith;
2) It's not the largest known spider as the Giant Huntsman spider (Heteropoda maximus) is considered the largest spider. It was discovered in 2001 in Northern Laos and since then many species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong area. Scientists still wonder why such large spiders have been undiscovered so long...

Photo (Wikipedia) Giant Huntsman spider:

Heteropoda_maxima_1.jpg (26.76 KiB) Viewed 7524 times

[Galee]

Had this little critter in the garden yesterday afternoon.



From what I can gather it is a Banded Kukri. Tried to get the wife to put her hand next to it to get some idea of size.

[Michael C]

Galee, you are correct in your identification.