Snake Bites the Toxic Toad That Feeds It--and Spreads Its Poison

ScientificAmerican.com ^ | January 29, 2007 | JR Minkel

[WFTR]

It sounds like something straight out of a video game: A snake collects toxin by biting a poisonous toad and uses that venom as a defense against hawks and other predators. But that is exactly what researchers say the Asian snake Rhabdophis tigrinus does, based on studies of glandular fluid from hatchlings and adult snakes on two Japanese islands.

Some R. tigrinus snakes carry toxins called bufadienolides in their nuchal glands, sacks located under a ridge of skin along their upper necks. When threatened, they arch their necks, exposing the poisonous ridge to an antagonist. The clawing and biting of hawks and other predators most likely rips the skin and lets the poison ooze out, potentially blinding the snake's attackers, says herpetologist Deborah Hutchinson of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. "It might not kill the predator but it would be noxious enough to deter predation," she says.

A few years ago, based on the snakes' defensive habits on different islands, Japanese researchers proposed that R. tigrinus may acquire its toxin from toads. Acquiring poison secondhand is not unheard of. The monarch butterfly is famous for harvesting its defensive poison from milkweed insects, and certain brightly colored poisonous frogs collect their toxin from mites, but Hutchinson says such cases in vertebrates are rare.

[WFTR]

I find this stuff interesting. I wonder whether anyone else will find it.

[verum ago]

that is interesting. I'm sorry, but I lack the eloquence to summon another word.

[reformed_democrat]

BUMP for interesting.

If you decide to start an "Interesting Nature Articles" PING list, please include me.

[WFTR]

Thanks. If I start anything, it would be a snake ping list or maybe an all reptiles ping list. I'm not much of a ping list guy, so I doubt that it will happen. If I run across things, I'll remember you when I can.

[reformed_democrat]

Thanks.

That's what I love most about Free Republic. You can spend 15 minutes here and learn more than you could ever hope to learn by reading a newspaper front to back.