How do you feel about snakes? Intrigued or terrified? In awe or creeped out? Of course, those aren’t the only options; the sight or thought of a snake can evoke many different emotions, but chances are indifference isn’t one of them. And is it any wonder? Some snakes can produce incredibly potent venoms that can seriously harm or even kill you, a characteristic that likely helped earn them their prominent role in many cultures and religions as a creature or god to be respected, if not feared. In this episode, we take a closer look at the diverse compounds that make up these venoms by exploring how they impact our bodies in the myriad ways they do and the current tools we have to combat their effects. Then we turn to evolution, not of snakes themselves but rather the role snakes may have played in primate evolution (snake detection hypothesis, anyone?) before discussing the historical development of antivenoms. We round out the episode by reviewing the current status of snakebite as a neglected tropical disease and mentioning some very exciting therapies on the horizon. Don’t missssss out on this enlightening envenoming episode today!
| History | Biology |
| Isbell, Lynne A. The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent. Harvard University Press, 2009. | WHO fact sheet: snakebite envenoming https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/snakebite-envenoming |
| Morgan, Diane. Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History: the story of a human obsession. ABC-CLIO, 2008. | Williams, D.J., Faiz, M.A., Abela-Ridder, B., Ainsworth, S., Bulfone, T.C., Nickerson, A.D., Habib, A.G., Junghanss, T., Fan, H.W., Turner, M. and Harrison, R.A., 2019. Strategy for a globally coordinated response to a priority neglected tropical disease: Snakebite envenoming. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 13(2), p.e0007059. |
| Bastos, Viviane A., et al. “Natural inhibitors of snake venom metalloendopeptidases: History and current challenges.” Toxins 8.9 (2016): 250. | Warrell, D.A., 2010. Snake bite. The lancet, 375(9708), pp.77-88. |
| Bordon, Karla de Castro Figueiredo, et al. “From animal poisons and venoms to medicines: achievements, challenges and perspectives in drug discovery.” Frontiers in pharmacology (2020): 1132. | Knudsen, C., Jürgensen, J.A., Føns, S., Haack, A.M., Friis, R.U., Dam, S.H., Bush, S.P., White, J. and Laustsen, A.H., 2021. Snakebite envenoming diagnosis and diagnostics. Frontiers in Immunology, 12, p.1268. |
| Calmette, A. “Upon the Mechanism of the Neutralization of Cobra Venom by its Antitoxin.” The Journal of Medical Research 21.1 (1909): 47. | Ferraz, C.R., Arrahman, A., Xie, C., Casewell, N.R., Lewis, R.J., Kool, J. and Cardoso, F.C., 2019. Multifunctional toxins in snake venoms and therapeutic implications: from pain to hemorrhage and necrosis. Frontiers in ecology and evolution, 7, p.218. |
| Coulson, Sheila, Sigrid Staurset, and Nick Walker. “Ritualized behavior in the middle stone age: evidence from Rhino Cave, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana.” PaleoAnthropology 2011 (2011): 18-61. | Slagboom, J., Kool, J., Harrison, R.A. and Casewell, N.R., 2017. Haemotoxic snake venoms: their functional activity, impact on snakebite victims and pharmaceutical promise. British journal of haematology, 177(6), pp.947-959. |
| DeLoache, Judy S., and Vanessa LoBue. “The narrow fellow in the grass: Human infants associate snakes and fear.” Developmental science 12.1 (2009): 201-207. | Ranawaka, U.K., Lalloo, D.G. and de Silva, H.J., 2013. Neurotoxicity in snakebite—the limits of our knowledge. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 7(10), p.e2302. |
| Garrison, Fielding Hudson. “Felice Fontana: A forgotten physiologist of the Trentino.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 11.3 (1935): 117. | Oguiura, N., Boni-Mitake, M. and Rádis-Baptista, G., 2005. New view on crotamine, a small basic polypeptide myotoxin from South American rattlesnake venom. Toxicon, 46(4), pp.363-370. |
| Habermehl, G. G. “Francesco Redi–life and work.” Toxicon: Official Journal of the International Society on Toxinology 32.4 (1994): 411-417. | Casewell, N.R., Jackson, T.N., Laustsen, A.H. and Sunagar, K., 2020. Causes and consequences of snake venom variation. Trends in pharmacological sciences, 41(8), pp.570-581. |
| Harris, Richard J., K. Nekaris, and Bryan G. Fry. “Monkeying around with venom: an increased resistance to α-neurotoxins supports an evolutionary arms race between Afro-Asian primates and sympatric cobras.” BMC biology 19.1 (2021): 1-13. | Jackson, T.N., Jouanne, H. and Vidal, N., 2019. Snake venom in context: neglected clades and concepts. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, p.332. |
| Hawgood, Barbara J. “Pioneers of anti-venomous serotherapy: Dr Vital Brazil (1865–1950).” Toxicon 30.5-6 (1992): 573-579. | Williams, S.S., Wijesinghe, C.A., Jayamanne, S.F., Buckley, N.A., Dawson, A.H., Lalloo, D.G. and de Silva, H.J., 2011. Delayed psychological morbidity associated with snakebite envenoming. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 5(8), p.e1255. |
| Hawgood, Barbara J. “Abbé Felice Fontana (1730–1805): founder of modern toxinology.” Toxicon 33.5 (1995): 591-601. | |
| Hawgood, Barbara J. “Doctor Albert Calmette 1863–1933: founder of antivenomous serotherapy and of antituberculous BCG vaccination.” Toxicon 37.9 (1999): 1241-1258. | |
| Heesy, C.P. (2010), Book review. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol., 142: 673-674. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.21294 | |
| Isbell, Lynne A. “Snakes as agents of evolutionary change in primate brains.” Journal of human evolution 51.1 (2006): 1-35. | |
| Landová, Eva, et al. “Venomous snakes elicit stronger fear than nonvenomous ones: Psychophysiological response to snake images.” PLoS One 15.8 (2020): e0236999. | |
| Panagides, Nadya, et al. “How the cobra got its flesh-eating venom: Cytotoxicity as a defensive innovation and its co-evolution with hooding, aposematic marking, and spitting.” Toxins 9.3 (2017): 103. | |
| Pucca, Manuela B., et al. “History of envenoming therapy and current perspectives.” Frontiers in immunology (2019): 1598. | |
| Russell, Findlay E. “Snake venom immunology: historical and practical considerations.” Journal of Toxicology: Toxin Reviews 7.1 (1988): 1-82. | |
| Soares, Sandra C., et al. “The hidden snake in the grass: superior detection of snakes in challenging attentional conditions.” PLoS one 9.12 (2014): e114724. | |
| Squaiella-Baptistão, Carla Cristina, et al. “The history of antivenoms development: Beyond Calmette and Vital Brazil.” Toxicon 150 (2018): 86-95. | |
| Thrasher, Cat, and Vanessa LoBue. “Do infants find snakes aversive? Infants’ physiological responses to “fear-relevant” stimuli.” Journal of experimental child psychology 142 (2016): 382-390. | |
| Van Le, Quan, et al. “Pulvinar neurons reveal neurobiological evidence of past selection for rapid detection of snakes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110.47 (2013): 19000-19005. | |
| Van Strien, Jan W., and Lynne A. Isbell. “Snake scales, partial exposure, and the Snake Detection Theory: A human event-related potentials study.” Scientific Reports 7.1 (2017): 1-9. | |
| “Primates vs Snakes” by PBS Eons Primates vs Snakes (An Evolutionary Arms Race) |
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