Snake

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The division of living beings into systematics is a continuous subject of research. Different systematic classifications exist side by side and one after the other. The taxon treated here has become obsolete due to new research or is not part of the group systematics presented in the German-language Wikipedia.

Mangrove night tree snake ( Boiga dendrophila )

As illusion snakes are snakes from the family of the snakes referred to (Colubridae) that have a single pair or a double pair of fangs in the rear area of its upper jaw and a working venom apparatus. Some authors describe them as the subfamily “Boiginae”, but recent molecular studies indicate that the snakes are not monophyletic , that is, they do not come from a common ancestor and should therefore not be listed as a taxon .

Skull of a western hook-nosed snake with opistoglyphic fangs

With the help of the teeth, bite wounds are created, through which toxic secretions from the snake's saliva can get into the body of the prey. With this type of dentition one speaks of opistoglyphic poisonous teeth (from gr. Opisto - behind and gluphe - furrow). These poisons are usually rather weak and very few species have a sufficiently potent poison to seriously damage larger mammals such as humans. In addition, due to their position far back in the mouth, the poison fangs usually only come into action when a prey gets relatively deep into the snake's throat. Some species actually chew the poison into the prey held in its mouth.

The boomslang , the liana snake and the cape bird snake are considered to be dangerous . In the event of poisoning by these species, profuse internal bleeding occurs in particular. There are no antisera for bird and liana snakes .

Known illusion adders are adjacent to the boom, the long Erdspitznatter , the mangrove tree snake and the brown tree snake . Although the grass snake ( Natrix natrix ) also has a very weak poison, it is not a false snake due to the lack of poisonous teeth.

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  • Trutnau, L. Venomous snakes. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8001-7371-9 .
  • Mattison, C. The Snakes Encyclopedia. BLV Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-405-15497-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ R. Lawson, JB Slowinski, BI Crother, FT Burbrink: Phylogeny of the Colubroidea (Serpentes): New evidence from mitochondrial and nuclear genes . In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution . tape 37 , 2005, pp. 581 - 601 (English, naherpetology.org [PDF]). Phylogeny of the Colubroidea (Serpentes): New evidence from mitochondrial and nuclear genes ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / naherpetology.org
  2. ^ P. Gravlund: Radiation within the advanced snakes (Caenophidia) with special emphasis on African opistoglyph colubrids, based on mitochondrial sequence data . In: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . tape 72 (1) , 2001, pp. 99-114 (English).