Poison of the toad, now of the serpent

2007/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biologia
• Zoologia
• Kimika

The serpent Rhabdophis tigrinus has no poison by nature, but is able to keep the poison of the toads he eats. Researchers have found that the snake that does not eat toad has no poison, but if it eats toads they have seen that in some glands behind the neck it has a poison similar to that of toad.

This fact also affects the behavior of the snake. In fact, when an eagle is attacked, the snake flees, but if it has the glands full of poison, it faces the eagle, inflating the glands to the maximum. If the eagle strikes, the poison is released.

The researchers now study better the poison that encloses the snake and want to know how the poison passes from the digestive system to the glands.