A Little Bit More
It’s important to point out here that almost anyone bitten by snakes had interacted in some way with a poisonous snake (tried to kill or capture). Rarely is anyone bitten who is simply minding their own business!
Eastern Garter Snake © Solon Morse
Most of us have heard that poisonous snakes have triangularly–shaped heads. But some snakes, like the garter snakes, are adept at flattening their own heads when threatened and this makes their head triangular in shape too. Poisonous snakes do have vertical cat-like pupils while nonpoisonous snakes have round pupils but just how close can one get to a snake to check this difference out? Not very practical! These differences are valid up to a point but not for the casual hiker or homeowner. Keep your distance and don’t interact and you’ll be safe!
All of the North American poisonous snakes, except the brightly colored Coral Snake, are pit vipers and have a pit between their eyes and nares (nostrils). This is a heat-sensitive organ that helps these snakes find their prey even in very dark conditions – they home in on the heat from their warm-blooded prey. Once again though, this organ is not all that easy to see and requires a rather close look to ascertain whether the snake in question does or does not have a pit – again, not very helpful.
So we’re back to knowing our local snakes. Of course if you don’t interact with the snake in question, and you shouldn’t, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s a venomous snake or not, you’ll not be in any danger.
Activities
Math – What are my chances?
Objectives: Perspective on danger from snake bite
Materials: Paper and pencil
If we figure that there are approximately 300,000,000 individuals in the U.S. (this makes a nice round number) we can look at the number of deaths for a given activity and see what our chances are in the “great scheme of things”.
These figures were compiled in 2003 and document those deaths caused by each.
Have your students determine what their chances are of dying for each of the following:
• Snakebite 2 - people died in 2003
• Comm. Airline crash 22
• Bicycle accident 762
• Car accident 44,757
• Motorcycle accident 3,676
• Bathtub drowning 332
• Pool drowning 515
• Dog attack 32
• Choking on food 875
Based on these figures, your chances of dying from a snakebite in 2003 were 1 in 150,000,000 – not too great!!!
Key Concepts
Structures and Functions, Identification, Adaptations and Diversity
Questions
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