The Herald (Harare)
COLUMN
29 September 2007
Posted to the web 29 September 2007
No study of Zimbabwean snakes would be complete without referring to the many other snakes, while being beneficial to the environment or humans, nevertheless have got a bad reputation,Chief, I think, among those is the File snake, called Ndara in Shona and N'kwakwa in isiNdebele.
This entirely beneficial snake has a distinctive triangular shape, with a row of white scales on the top. It is purple to black above with an ivory white underside.
It's quite a large snake (about one-and-a half metres long), has a large head, and defends itself quite effectively, though it has no venom.
It has achieved the reputation of a harbinger of bad news, if not the curse of the mudzimu. Whites also believe it to be highly venomous. As a result, the snake, though almost universal throughout Zimbabwe, is not common.
The female, who is usually the much larger snake, not only coils itself up like a boa constrictor but also emits a very unpleasant smell from the cloacal glands.
The snake has never been known to bite, except when the handler's fingers carry the scent of frogs and toads, because the snake then thinks the fingers are its favourite meal -- toads! A new definition, I think, of a finger lunch.
It's an evening predator -- because frogs and toads also are more active in the cool of the day -- preferring to spend most of the day in anthills or cracks in walls -- and, like amphibians, it prefers rain, so it is most active after a shower in the summer. It kills by constricting the prey.
Egg-eating snakes, on the other hand, have almost no teeth or fangs. Eggs are broken by specially designed projections from the vertebrae of the neck.
The eggshell and any solid content, like the developing embryo, are spat out, so the snake has nice, scrambled egg for supper. Or, in the case of the Eastern Egg-eater, maybe an omelette!
Since they don't have teeth, they protect themselves by impressive bluffing "attacks", like the Gaboon Viper, and "hissing" by rubbing their tightly coiled bodies together to enable their serrated scales to emit a sound.
Also, there are some cases of mistaken identity.
Bibron's burrowing adder, called Nzau, or Nzaukuwiri in Shona is an infrequent cause of bites especially of children, who seem to be more inquisitive, and less fearful, of this small, brown, snake.
It also differs in its mode of attack, because of its relatively small head. Commonly it hides behind logs of wood or stored upfu sacks (especially ones made of jute or hessian), and, as its name implies, lives, and investigates, in burrows, where its main food -- small rats and baby lizards -- are to be found.
Its strike deserves special mention, because it paralyses by injecting venom from its ultra-long fangs, compressing its small lower jaw so that the fangs pass either side of it.
By the same token it is impossible to hold this venomous snake safely by grasping its neck, because it simply writhes to inflict a bite with one of its long fangs into a finger.
I think the most dangerous mistake is to wrongly identify it. It's commonly confused with a Wolf snake, which has similar, long recurved teeth (hence its name) and hunts in similar sites, but feeds almost entirely on lizards.
The difference is that the long, non-venomous teeth occur on both jaws, and it is a slow, non-aggressive snake which only bites if it's handled roughly.
Some snakes seem to go like lightning, travelling at what seems like a fast speed and going over the top of tall grass, especially when escaping from a veld fire. In fact, snakes can only go at about 15km/hr.
From what I've said, when bitten by a snake it's always important to go to an expert health worker, even if one thinks the snake that inflicted the bite was not venomous, and the bite seems trivial.
Of course, one must not expect a doctor to know every snake in the area, and a lot of progress can be achieved by working together with the doctor and the victim to bring about a positive result.
A word of caution will not, I hope, be misplaced or misinterpreted here. When I was Minister of Health and Child Welfare, a surgeon cut a venomous snakebite with several incisions, thereby making the patient much more ill.
When I asked why that was done, I
received the response "To let the venom out, stupid!"
A moment's thought will rationally resolve that line of thought. The patient had been bitten by a puff adder some days previously, with the result that the area around the wound was rotting (we call it "dehiscing"), and swelling and discoloration of the leg already extensive.
Since puff adder venom is translocated by the lymphatic system, not the bloodstream, blood letting will not release the venom.
Additionally, the passing of several days since the event of the bite would mean that the venom had already become systemic, and therefore was not localised to the limb where the bite was sustained.
Fortunately, the patient survived, but was in hospital for a lot of time longer than should have been the case. I think, also, the degree of permanent disability was greater than it might have been. An uncharitable view might have been that the surgeon looked at the relative value schedule, rather than the patient.
In conclusion, therefore (because this article is the last of the present series), I believe that we should accept that snakes are an important part of our ecosystem, and learn more about them and their contribution to our world.
Then we, and our loved ones, are less likely to panic irrationally, and appreciate that, indeed, God has made all things well.
COLUMN
29 September 2007
Posted to the web 29 September 2007
No study of Zimbabwean snakes would be complete without referring to the many other snakes, while being beneficial to the environment or humans, nevertheless have got a bad reputation,Chief, I think, among those is the File snake, called Ndara in Shona and N'kwakwa in isiNdebele.
This entirely beneficial snake has a distinctive triangular shape, with a row of white scales on the top. It is purple to black above with an ivory white underside.
It's quite a large snake (about one-and-a half metres long), has a large head, and defends itself quite effectively, though it has no venom.
It has achieved the reputation of a harbinger of bad news, if not the curse of the mudzimu. Whites also believe it to be highly venomous. As a result, the snake, though almost universal throughout Zimbabwe, is not common.
The female, who is usually the much larger snake, not only coils itself up like a boa constrictor but also emits a very unpleasant smell from the cloacal glands.
The snake has never been known to bite, except when the handler's fingers carry the scent of frogs and toads, because the snake then thinks the fingers are its favourite meal -- toads! A new definition, I think, of a finger lunch.
It's an evening predator -- because frogs and toads also are more active in the cool of the day -- preferring to spend most of the day in anthills or cracks in walls -- and, like amphibians, it prefers rain, so it is most active after a shower in the summer. It kills by constricting the prey.
Egg-eating snakes, on the other hand, have almost no teeth or fangs. Eggs are broken by specially designed projections from the vertebrae of the neck.
The eggshell and any solid content, like the developing embryo, are spat out, so the snake has nice, scrambled egg for supper. Or, in the case of the Eastern Egg-eater, maybe an omelette!
Since they don't have teeth, they protect themselves by impressive bluffing "attacks", like the Gaboon Viper, and "hissing" by rubbing their tightly coiled bodies together to enable their serrated scales to emit a sound.
Also, there are some cases of mistaken identity.
Bibron's burrowing adder, called Nzau, or Nzaukuwiri in Shona is an infrequent cause of bites especially of children, who seem to be more inquisitive, and less fearful, of this small, brown, snake.
It also differs in its mode of attack, because of its relatively small head. Commonly it hides behind logs of wood or stored upfu sacks (especially ones made of jute or hessian), and, as its name implies, lives, and investigates, in burrows, where its main food -- small rats and baby lizards -- are to be found.
Its strike deserves special mention, because it paralyses by injecting venom from its ultra-long fangs, compressing its small lower jaw so that the fangs pass either side of it.
By the same token it is impossible to hold this venomous snake safely by grasping its neck, because it simply writhes to inflict a bite with one of its long fangs into a finger.
I think the most dangerous mistake is to wrongly identify it. It's commonly confused with a Wolf snake, which has similar, long recurved teeth (hence its name) and hunts in similar sites, but feeds almost entirely on lizards.
The difference is that the long, non-venomous teeth occur on both jaws, and it is a slow, non-aggressive snake which only bites if it's handled roughly.
Some snakes seem to go like lightning, travelling at what seems like a fast speed and going over the top of tall grass, especially when escaping from a veld fire. In fact, snakes can only go at about 15km/hr.
From what I've said, when bitten by a snake it's always important to go to an expert health worker, even if one thinks the snake that inflicted the bite was not venomous, and the bite seems trivial.
Of course, one must not expect a doctor to know every snake in the area, and a lot of progress can be achieved by working together with the doctor and the victim to bring about a positive result.
A word of caution will not, I hope, be misplaced or misinterpreted here. When I was Minister of Health and Child Welfare, a surgeon cut a venomous snakebite with several incisions, thereby making the patient much more ill.
When I asked why that was done, I
received the response "To let the venom out, stupid!"
A moment's thought will rationally resolve that line of thought. The patient had been bitten by a puff adder some days previously, with the result that the area around the wound was rotting (we call it "dehiscing"), and swelling and discoloration of the leg already extensive.
Since puff adder venom is translocated by the lymphatic system, not the bloodstream, blood letting will not release the venom.
Additionally, the passing of several days since the event of the bite would mean that the venom had already become systemic, and therefore was not localised to the limb where the bite was sustained.
Fortunately, the patient survived, but was in hospital for a lot of time longer than should have been the case. I think, also, the degree of permanent disability was greater than it might have been. An uncharitable view might have been that the surgeon looked at the relative value schedule, rather than the patient.
In conclusion, therefore (because this article is the last of the present series), I believe that we should accept that snakes are an important part of our ecosystem, and learn more about them and their contribution to our world.
Then we, and our loved ones, are less likely to panic irrationally, and appreciate that, indeed, God has made all things well.