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Bug Collecting !
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by Cro on December 21, 2008
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Questions like the King Cobra vs Inland Taipan thread never fail to amaze me.
What is this, Trivia Night ???
I guess it is only natural for beginning reptile keepers to try to remember a bunch of trivial facts about snakes. I am not trying to knock people wanting to learn, however, I am questioning why it always take this path.
Perhaps knowing which snake is longest, and which weighs the most, and which is fastest, and which is slowest, and which has the longest fangs, and which has the largest venom glands, and which kills the most people, etc gives them something to talk about ? Perhaps it gives them a good starting point toward more advanced knowledge ? Hopefully.
The problem is that many of these folks are looking for "absolute" answers. They want to find a quick and easy definative answer about these animals, but do not want to learn more than that.
But guess what. We are dealing with wild animals and nature, and that is not absolute.
What might be the world's longest snake today could be outsized by a different type of snake that is found in some jungle tomorrow.
Do you folks know that a Giant Snake unknown to science was found in a unexplored part of Africa just a few weeks ago ? It is so new, that it does not even have a scientific name yet. Does it get larger than the largest reticulated python ? Who knows ! Perhaps it weighs more than the largest anaconda ? Who knows !
This argument about which snake is the most deadly is equally meaningless trivia. Every snakebite is an individual medical emergency, and each snake bitten person is an individual.
In the case of the king cobra and the taipan, both snakes will produce fatal bites without prompt antivenom treatment. Perhaps the taipan has the most toxic venom drop for drop, but the king cobra can deliver hundreds of times as much venom, even if it is not as strong drop for drop. Asking this silly question time and time again, is like asking what kind of truck is better to get run over by, a Mack Truck or a Freightliner Truck ? In both cases you are dead. Perhaps a taipan has enough venom to kill 150 people, and a king cobra has enough to kill 156 people. Is one of these snakes really more deadly than the other based on that ?
The reason I titled this thread "Bug Collecting" is because many folks have this habit of collecting "trivial facts" just as an Entomologist would collect bugs. The bug man takes those bugs and collects them, then kills them, and pins them to a board, and puts a label on them, and puts them into a dusty museum drawer, never to be seen again. And he thinks that he knows everything there is to know about that bug after he has "bug collected" it.
But does he ?
By "pinning down the facts" about that bug, he really has stopped learning. He will never see that bug live out it's life. He will not see it fly, eat, or mate. He will not see it produce young. And he might not ever see that catapiller turn into a butterfly.
So, my point is this. Do not "Bug Collect" facts about reptiles. Learn what you can, but never stop learning. Don't try too hard to pin down a bunch of trivial facts that are almost meaningless in the real natural world. And always remember that those facts you do learn are subject to change at anytime. Be open to new ideas and possibilities, and view anything you learn about reptiles as just a starting point toward more knowledge. Instead of learning what a king cobra's venom might do, learn how there are perhaps 13 unique snakes that are now called king cobra, and learn that they will probably soon be split up into different snakes, that live in different areas and become different sizes and eat different foods, and have different patterns and temperments. Or, on that taipan, find out where it lives, and what it eats, and when during the year it is on the surface, and what part of the year it spends underground, etc, etc.
Try your best to not "Bug Collect."
Best Regards and Merry Christmas
John Z
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RE: Bug Collecting !
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by puffadder7 on December 21, 2008
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too bad every person that asked or is going too ask these kind of questions could read this, but thats the way it goes, the bad thing is some kids see someone on 'youtube' and try and keep venomous snakes, yes i do have videos on youtube but im not trying too get people involved, im trying to help people learn, but anyway kids are always goin to ask what the 'most venomous' and stuff like that, so what too do, arin
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