What is the most dangerous snake

AbstractLetter to Editor of Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins.Keywords: Snakes, Snake bites, Snake venoms, Snake envenomationSnake venoms are complex mixtures of bioactive mole-cules that scientists can now physically separate and chem-ically characterize [1]. Interestingly, the snakes that possessthese venoms remain among the most misrepresented ani-mals outside of science. Primitive societies aware of thedeleterious effects of venomous snake bites assignedmythological properties to these animals [2], but early nat-uralists are also responsible for spawning fallacious claimsabout snake venoms.“Molecules of living germinal matter are thrown intothe blood from the venom, and speedily grow into cellsand multiply so that in a few hours millions are pro-duced” [3].“Melancholy is quickly changed into gay anticipations[upon ingestion of venom]… An ideot became improvedin intellect” [4].“It is reported that if the party live that is bitten, thesnake will dye, and if the party dye that snake will live ” [5].Because of social and cultural inertia these and othermisconceptions remain part of our popular culture –among these is the myth of the most dangerous snake.People who study venomous snakes are invariably askedthe same question, “What is the most dangerous venom-ous snake?”. This question is impossible to answer with-out further clarification. Does the person want to know“Which snake species has the most venom?” or “Whichis the deadliest snake species?”. The absolute volume ofvenom possessed by various species is fairly straightfor-ward, albeit risky to quantify, yet is confounded by nu-merous factors including size, age, health, and methodof extraction [6]. Nevertheless detailed tables of wet anddry extracted mass can be found across decades of litera-ture [7].Does the person want to know which species is the dead-liest? Then it needs to be further clarified; deadliest forwhom? Different animals demonstrate lethal sensitivitiesthat vary by several orders of magnitude [8]. In general,ectothermic animals tend to be less sensitive to snakevenoms [9] whereas some birds may have unusually highsensitivities to snake venoms; but there are countless ex-ceptions to both of these trends. Moreover, some animals(e.g., wood rats, cotton rats) have clearly evolved physio-logical resistance to the venoms of sympatric snake species[10], but may have no particular resistance to the venomsof snakes with which they have not coevolved.Laboratory animals like mice, rats, or guinea pigs,traditionally used in quantitative determinations ofvenom toxicity are inbred and may yield consistentmeasurement outcomes [11], but none of these are ne-cessarily representative of wild animals or humans. Fur-ther confusion occurs when laboratory mammals areemployed to score the toxicity of venoms from speciesthat would never encounter mammalian predators orprey [12]. The mode of venom administration (i.e., intra-venous, subcutaneous, intramuscular, or intraperitoneal)has a tremendous influence on the toxic action ofvenoms [13], and minimum lethal dosages may need tobe several hundred times greater when delivered sub-cutaneously than those administered intravenously.Therefore, any extrapolations from contrived laboratorysituations must be interpreted with caution.Perhaps the person wants to know the snake speciesthat is most deadly to humans. If so one would need toconsider, “Which snake causes the most deaths?” or“Which snake is most likely to have a lethal bite?”. Theanswer to the former question is confounded by patternsof human population density and social habits. For ex-ample cobras are responsible for tens of thousands of