What is officially the undisputed most deadly snake in terms of venom "drop for drop"?

Question

I have so much fascination about snakes esp venomous ones and often confused with this . Some sites quoted the Australian brown snake, some say the taipan, mamba, cobra, viper, rattler, coral blah blah. Which is which? Can anyone with authority settle this argument and pass the official crown to the most deserving slither?.

Answer 1

actually the most venomous snakes are the sea snakes, i think the olive snake is the most poisonous.

Answer 2

1. The standard for measurement is called the 'LD50'- "Leathal Dose for 50% of victims". Line up a hundred victims, inject with the same dosage. Whatever dosage it takes to kill half of them is the LD50.

2. Studies have not been done on every snake in the world, and on the snakes it has been done on, some show incredible variation.

3. Most lists of LD50 list species averages. It is ALWAYS possible that for one reason or another (sample size, handling issues, etc.) that the averages are skewed one way or another.

4. Toxicity of venom is only part of the story of how dangerous a snake is. The other questions are:
- how much venom does it produce or inject? (The yield) If it has a low LD50 (small amount is letal), but only produces micro-grams of the stuff it will not hurt a human.
- how aggressive is the animal? If it just plain never bites, why worry about it?
- how likely is a person to encounter the animal? If the animal is rare or hard to find or rarely overlaps human places, bites just won't happen.

5. Finally, LD50 is just an attempt to quantifiy something. Basically we are measuring how dangerous this stuff is on mice- not humans. There are a million other factors that come into play making it really, really hard to make accurate 'most dangerous' comments.

The first website listed below discusses the problems with measuring toxicity. The second lists various snake LD50s and yields.

That all said...

Some commonly mentioned snakes, in order of toxicity (with a subcutaneous injection site)-

Fierce snake (Inland taipan): LD50- 0.025
Eastern Brown snake: LD50- 0.036
Dubois' Sea snake (Aipysurus duboisi): LD50 0.044
Sea snake (Acalyptophis peroni): LD50- 0.079
Black mamba: LD50- 0.32
Boomslang: LD50 (tested intra-venously)- .72*
Coral snake: LD50- 1.3
King cobra: LD50- 1.7
Spectacled cobra (Naja naja): LD50- 4.3
Eastern Diamondback: LD50- 14.6
Cottonmouth: LD50- 25.8
Bushmaster: LD50- 36.9

So, what about the dreaded super-venomous sea snakes? The Inland Taipan is just more deadly than they are- ON AVERAGE. Many older reports had the sea snakes higher, and I am sure future reports will shuffle the top numbers some more.

(*- the boomslang was not measured sub-cutaneously- remember the bit about not all snakes have been tested the same way? The differences between a sub-cutaneous injection and an IV injection are inconsistant. In some species it is similar, in others either wildly more or less effective. Other snakes like the boomslang rate about the same either way, so we'll just use this number as is.)
The sites below and others unlisted confirm this data.

Answer 3

Most poisonous snake drop for drop, as far as I know is the South African Boomslang. It's a colubrid and it's fangs are situated at the back of the mouth. They grow larger than 1.8m. There toxin is a hemotoxin, it stops blood clogging and the victim bleeds to death through all any openings on the body. A small amount of venom is injected, between 4-8mg (5mg being enough to kill a fully grown healthy man). The venom starts working after 24 hours.

I have to agree with Meggz, after carefull reading up sea snakes are definately tops. Here's a quote from wikipedia;

"Sea snakes are venomous. They have short hollow fangs near the front of the upper jaw, and the poison acts on the nervous system like the related cobra's. Unlike land snakes, however, sea snakes are not inclined to bite, and as such are not harmful unless abused. Sea Snake venom is generally more toxic and dangerous than venom from land snakes.[2] However, Sea snakes have a less efficient venom injection apparatus as compared to land snakes, vipers or cobras. Antivenom is available commercially in Australia, made by CSL Limited it is active against all sea snake venoms.

All 50 or so species of sea snakes are venomous, and some are known to have venom ten times as strong as rattlesnake venom, making them among the most potentially dangerous of all animals. Fortunately for divers, they have short fangs and are usually quite docile. A sea snake's paddle-shaped tail is useful for swimming, but otherwise these reptiles look very much like their land cousins, even down to the forked tongue they use during their searches.

Most cases of people being bitten by sea snakes involve fishermen bitten when sorting through a catch from a net. The venom is composed of powerful neurotoxins (affecting the nervous system) and sometimes myotoxins (affecting skeletal muscles), with a fatal dose being about 1.5 milligrams. Most sea snakes can produce 10-15 mg of venom."

Me and my Boomslang will settle for close second place. ;-)

Answer 4

I saw a show about dangerous snakes and they said that sea snakes are the most dangerous in terms of venom. The reason people don't think about them is the fact that bites from these snakes are so rare, since they live in the ocean. Fierce snakes, mambas and such are just more well known because they are land snakes.

For the record - Pythons are NOT venomous! Snakes are amazing creatures, don't villify all snakes and DON'T believe what you see on Snakes on a Plane - it's FICTION!

Answer 5

it ought to reason the female of the species to earnings a lot of weight, undergo 9 months of soreness, and her eventual cursing of, and feeling scorn in direction of, the trouser snake and its proprietor!

Answer 6

bushmaster

Answer 7

black mamba