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Even a dead snake can bite you
Even a dead snake can bite you. A dead snake bit a 66-year-old man twice on the hand on Tuesday. Jake Thomas, a volunteer who mows the local cemetery at Werris Creek, Australia, came across a snake, which he cut into half, during his usual clean-up.
Snakes do have their bite reflexes even after death. There are many recorded instances of people getting bitten by snakes' decapitated heads.
A dead snake bit a 66-year-old man twice on the hand on Tuesday. Jake Thomas, a volunteer who mows the local cemetery at Werris Creek, Australia, came across a snake, which he cut into half, during his usual clean-up. But 45 minutes later, when he came back to get rid of the snake, it bit him twice, News.com.au reported. Thomas said that he saw two little marks on his hand and was taken to the hospital where he was given antivenene and spent two days in intensive care.
“We the natives of the land of snake charmers must know the behaviour of snakes, even if it is dead,” Avinash Vishwanathan, the general secretary of Friends of Snakes Society, Hyderabad, said. “Snakes do have their bite reflexes even after death. There are many recorded instances of people getting bitten by snakes' decapitated heads. However, in my experience, I observed that the longest period of time of such a bite reflex by a dead snake was 10 minutes. It is difficult for me to believe that the reflexes would last 45 minutes or one hour.”
Similar instances of a person being bitten, much later after decapitating a snake have been reported in many parts of the globe. Nat Geo reported an instance, where a homeless man in Alabama thought it was safe to pick up the head of a venomous snake since it had been decapitated by his friend using a machete. But as soon as Bo McMahon put his finger in the body-less snake's mouth and found out the wrong way that the nerves of the snake were still intact, prompting it to bite down on his finger.
Commenting on the potency of venom after the snake is dead, Avinash added, “The venom, however, could remain potent for an hour. Usually, when exposed in nature, venom gets denatured within several minutes and would lose its potency, but within the glands, they tend to remain potent for longer period of time,”
“So, my appeal to everyone is, try not to kill a snake and call a rescuer. If the snake is dead, do not mess around, it can still kill you,” he added.
