Talk:Boomslang

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Untitled

Just one thing to explain: I removed "many" from the sentence: "[...] deeply grooved fangs that are (like in many other venomous colubrids) located in the rear of the jaw." All the venomous colubrids have fangs in the rear of the jaw. AFAIK there are no proteroglypha of solenoglypha among colubrids. "Many" suggests that there can be venomous colubrids with other type of fangs. Of course there are many (most in fact) non-venomous colubrids. Jasra 23:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some species, like Ahaetulla sp. are not exactly rear-fanged, others have no directed method and are aglyphous... but with or without the word "many", it conveys the point. :) -Dawson 23:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I forgot aglypha venomous snakes. Rhabophis tigrinum (syn. Natrix tigrina) can be an example (one fatal invenomation recorded). Jasra 00:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Behaviour & Diet

"Their diet includes chameleons, arboreal lizards, frogs, and occasionally small mammals, birds and eggs from nesting birds which they swallow whole, without prior strangling."

This sentence doesn't sound right - "prior strangling" isn't the right term as they don't strangle, but rather crush or asphyxiate, and it doesn't apply to eggs anyway, where it would be simply be crushing, but I'm stumped as to how it ought to be phrased...

"without employing constriction" should be adequate to make it sound more encyclopedic and explain the term via wikilink. -Dawson 15:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For this can I include "The defensive posture of the boomslang involves inflating its throat, exposing contrasting coloured interstitial skin, and laterally compressing the front of its body” ^[1]? (Ruchith Singhabahu (talk) 15:05, 3 May 2015 (UTC)) Also, "While hunting they will come down to the ground on a fairly regular basis in search of prey"^[2][reply]

References

^ O'Shea, Mark; Dickey, Tim Halliday ; editorial consultant: David A. (2002). Reptiles and amphibians (1st American ed., repr. with corrections ed.). New York: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-7894-9393-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Jackson, Tom (2011). The illustrated encyclopedia of animals of the world : an expert reference guide to 840 amphibians, reptiles and mammals from every continent. London: Southwater. ISBN 978-1780191089.

Venom

"An adult boomslang has 1.6–8 mg of venom. 0.72 mg/kg is sufficient to kill a human in 50% of cases, if the venom reaches a vein."

There are a couple of problems I see with this statement. First, the source document says "All data in the table that follows must be viewed with grave suspicion," and indicates the data are LD50 for mice, not humans. But the other problem is the numbers in the source don't seem to add up. At a LD50 of 0.72mg/kg, it would take on average 54mg of venom to kill a 75kg adult human. But with the snake delivering a maximum of 8mg of venom, this would mean it would be relatively harmless. I suspect (though I have not been able to verify) that there is some confusion in the source between milligrams and micrograms. If the LD50 were .72μg/kg, it would all make sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ortonmc (talk • contribs) 03:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree which your arguments. Probably the cited source is unrelyable. Other sources give lower figures, e.g. this paper by Macessy].

BTW: I really disagree with having this senseless ranking of Most Venomous Land Snakes in the articl. Apart from being a ranking of venom potency - not venomness of a snake, it's completely intransparent on what the ranking is based. The source cited gives 4 methods of LD50 determination, the boomslang only appears in one of them (intranevenous - on rank 5 with an LD50 of 71µg/kg). So how do you rank a venom that appears only in one column of a 4 column matrix? Excuse my strong words - but IMHO the list is rubbish and should not appear in WP articles. --Burkhard (talk) 19:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have replaced the LD50 citation with the above source which in turn summarizes from various sources. LD50 were given for mice, not men as the article suggested. I have removed the list of ten most venomous land snakes as the LD50 figure for Dispholidus vary by more than a factor of 10 - ranking is futil, even more as figures are only given for IV application. --Burkhard (talk) 20:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK nomination

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[1] O'Shea, Mark; Dickey, Tim Halliday ; editorial consultant: David A. (2002). Reptiles and amphibians (1st American ed., repr. with corrections ed.). New York: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-7894-9393-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[2] Jackson, Tom (2011). The illustrated encyclopedia of animals of the world : an expert reference guide to 840 amphibians, reptiles and mammals from every continent. London: Southwater. ISBN 978-1780191089.

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