Hi guys,
When Gigantor - the biggest Common Tree Snake any of my group of friends have ever seen - mistook my finger for a fish, I decided to take advantage of the situation. Rather than encourage her to let go of my finger as soon as possible (after taking photos of course), I decided to experiment on myself.
There is a school of thought that CTS produce venom of sorts, apparently in a similar fashion to the entire monitor family. Having been bitten a number of times previously, I personally don't think they are venomous - certainly not to humans. Their saliva may have certain properties that induce certain effects (anti/coagulant) but actual venom ...?
So here I have an unequivocably full grown CTS chewing on my finger and now starting to, a little painfully, slice into the skin on my knuckle. Against my natural instincts, I let her be, wondering whether she'd let go by herself. She didn't. After at least 15 minutes, I figured that was long enough and resorted to the cold water tap in the basin.
When she did eventually release me, my finger was completely covered with saliva. So much so that there was very little blood at this point. It wasn't until, not without some effort, I cleaned off the saliva coating that I realized just how deep the main cut was. If there was going to be any adverse effects, then surely this is the optimal scenario.
The blood soon started flowing quite profusely. It took quite some time and several sheets of paper towel before it eventually subsided enough to apply a bandaid. So now all I had to do was wait and see if a) I felt sick at all, or b) there was any local reaction. The answer to both is a resounding no.
Cheers,
Nic
When Gigantor - the biggest Common Tree Snake any of my group of friends have ever seen - mistook my finger for a fish, I decided to take advantage of the situation. Rather than encourage her to let go of my finger as soon as possible (after taking photos of course), I decided to experiment on myself.
There is a school of thought that CTS produce venom of sorts, apparently in a similar fashion to the entire monitor family. Having been bitten a number of times previously, I personally don't think they are venomous - certainly not to humans. Their saliva may have certain properties that induce certain effects (anti/coagulant) but actual venom ...?
So here I have an unequivocably full grown CTS chewing on my finger and now starting to, a little painfully, slice into the skin on my knuckle. Against my natural instincts, I let her be, wondering whether she'd let go by herself. She didn't. After at least 15 minutes, I figured that was long enough and resorted to the cold water tap in the basin.
When she did eventually release me, my finger was completely covered with saliva. So much so that there was very little blood at this point. It wasn't until, not without some effort, I cleaned off the saliva coating that I realized just how deep the main cut was. If there was going to be any adverse effects, then surely this is the optimal scenario.
The blood soon started flowing quite profusely. It took quite some time and several sheets of paper towel before it eventually subsided enough to apply a bandaid. So now all I had to do was wait and see if a) I felt sick at all, or b) there was any local reaction. The answer to both is a resounding no.
Cheers,
Nic