How snakes got their fangs

Phys.org ^ | 8/10/2021 | by Flinders University

[Red Badger]

God is THE Great Engineer.........................

[BenLurkin]

[Fester Chugabrew]

by Rudyard Kipling.

[DarrellZero]

Good theory on how snakes might have evolved a hollow tooth.

To me, however, the bigger mystery is how a snake would develop a venom sack coupled to the hollow tooth containing poison harmless to the snake but deadly to prey.

[Vaquero]

[Vaquero]

[sphinx]

Eels interbred with tax collectors. I thought everybody knew this.

[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

But Who repurposed the wrinkle in the teeth, I wonder?

[PUGACHEV]

Just as strange as how snakes developed fangs, one night in the 1970’s, some kid broke into the Reptile House at National Zoo in Washington D.C. He managed to steal a full sized Gabon Viper - which is a very impressive snake. He put it into a paper grocery bag, and while riding home on a city bus, the snake bit him. He survived, but only because they rushed in anti-venom in from somewhere else.

[Red Badger]

If they had a Gabon Viper in the zoo, then the antivenin was near at hand..................

[Vaquero]

Yes a paper grocery bag should do…. Yes.

[backwoods-engineer]

Genesis 3:
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

[PUGACHEV]

I had a few things wrong. The incident happened in 1983, the kid stole two Gaboon Vipers from the National Zoo, and took them on the bus in a plastic garbage bag. They did have some antivenom on hand, but it wasn't enough, so they had to fly in more from the Bronx Zoo, and later zoos in Baltimore and Philadelphia. See the story below. As Jack Nicholson said in the movie The Last Detail, "There are more strange things in this world that you could possibly imagine".

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/06/us/zoos-come-to-aid-of-teen-ager-bitten-by-viper-stolen-from-cage-in-washington.html

[takebackaustin]

It doesnt say they are hollow like a needle, it says and shows in the diagram cross sections that it has a deep groove on the back side as the fang penetrates , which keeps the venom from being wiped off.

Which was my understanding before, snake fangs are not really like hypodermic needles.

[takebackaustin]

You know what, you are right, that last cross section is halfway down and is like a hypodermic. mea culpa.

[knarf]

Genesis 49:17
Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

[knarf]

Created that way

Genesis 49:17

Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

[Mr. K]

thank you - now I have to clean up coffee from my desk

[Mr. K]

Only I heard it was lawyers