Few things scare people more than venomous bites and poisonous creatures. When referring to toxic creatures people often use the terms venomous and poisonous interchangeably. Strictly speaking that’s not the case. Poisonous creatures passively deliver their toxins via touch or ingestion. Poison dart frogs and puffer fish are a well known examples of highly toxic animals that are poisonous. The secretions from the dart frog get absorbed through the skin, while the neurotoxins of the puffer fish enter the body as part of the digestive process. Both toxins can kill humans.
Venomous creatures actively inject their toxin into victims through bites, stings, or other puncturing actions. They come in all varieties and sizes ranging from insects and arthropods (ants, bees, wasps, scorpions, and spiders) to large vertebrates (snakes, a few lizards, shrews, the male duck-billed platypus). The most common delivery systems are fangs and stingers, although the platypus uses a sharp spur on its hind leg.
The toxins vary depending on their purpose. Defensive oriented toxins, such as bee stings, deliver intense pain as quickly as possible. Dr. Justin Schmidt, who voluntarily subjected himself to numerous stings and bites, created a scale to measure the intensity of the pain. On the Schmidt Pain Index a 0 equals scarcely any pain, while a 4 means you’d prefer to die. A bee sting rates an SPI of 2. The bite of a bullet ant broke the scale. Even 12 hours later the intense pain exceeded all other stings and bites. Dr. Schmidt gave it a special SPI of 4+.
Predators’ venom, which is meant to kill, immobilize, or otherwise incapacitate its prey is a bit more complicated. Broadly speaking there are two types neurotoxins and hemotoxins. Neurotoxins attack prey through the nervous system. They create paralysis and spasms that shut down the respiratory and cardiac systems. Hemotoxins directly attack organs and blood cells. They disrupt normal functions such as clotting and can trigger organ failure. Predatory venom may even specifically attack the heart (cardiotoxins) or the muscles (myotoxins) to inflict its damage. Here’s an io9 article with more details on 20 of the most deadly venomous animals.
Today’s Map
This map comes courtesy of Reddit user lansen15 using data from the Armed Forces Pest Management Board. To be included in the list the creatures need to be capable of causing injury or death in humans.
Not surprisingly the countries with the most venomous creatures possess large areas of tropical or sub-tropical climates and in some cases deserts. These represent ideal habitats for some of the leading venomous animals and insects. Are you surprised by France being the most venomous place in Europe (insert your favorite French joke here)? Well, it’s a bit of a data oddity. French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America, is considered an integral part of France. If venomous creatures scare you, New Zealand might be a better option than Australia.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
You find the most interesting things to share. I imagine some of this will show up in a forthcoming book?
Note to self: Never let a duck-billed platypus kick me.
As my tagline states – ‘A mind that wonders often wanders’ – and in my wandering I occasionally find some interesting stuff, at least to me. As for working this into a book, in a very tangential way I already did. The first Warders Book (The Poisoned Princess) features a particularly nasty bee venom.
I’m a little surprised that Russia has so many, but I assume that’s it due to some dangerous creatures in a localized region skewing the data for the whole country…. Do you think that is indeed the case?
I’m not really sure why there aren’t fewer in Russia. My guess would be that it’s so big that it covers many eco-systems giving it more venomous creatures.