Posted on 01/22/2014 7:34:06 PM PST by kingattax
They should Tax the water to save the children.
Good grief.
Two species of 'sea kraits' are found in Australia (as well as throughout South East Asia). Though they are aquatic, they come on to land to lay eggs and can spend quite a lot of time on land. They are quite closely related to the Asian Kraits, but strictly speaking are a different group.
Thank you. After I posted that, I remembered that some sea snakes are kraits and sea snakes are definitely found in Australian waters, but I still wondered how one would have gotten into someone’s swimming pool!
I remember a clip on You Tube of a black mamba which got trapped in someone’s empty pool in South Africa. One of the people in the clip was prodding it with a stick. I remember thinking that I would think that people in South Africa, of all people, would know how quickly a black mamba can climb a stick and what a reach they have-something like two-thirds of their body length, which is very long.
I also remember reading about how they can get caught up in the wheels and things on cars, and have been seen rising above the tall native grasses while moving swiftly.
I also remember reading about how some of the land kraits are fairly small, and sometimes enter dwellings to curl with humans sleeping on the floor for warmth, and a lot of people get bitten that way. It seems the bite itself is hardly felt, but kills you dead as a doorknob.
I seem to remember that more people are killed by Russell’s vipers in that region, than any other snake, because one, there’s so many of them, and two, they bite the barefooted rice paddy workers who step on them, and the anti-venom is pretty scarce and usually a long distance away.
Dang, the worst venomous thing on land we have to deal with is rattlesnakes, and that’s bad enough!
I can’t stand snakes, but at the same time they’re interesting to learn about, from a book. I can’t stand to watch them move, even in videos. They’re just too creepy.
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