You'd have to be a pretty special person to own a pet which could so easily kill you.

Special kind of stupid if you ask me... (No offense to those stupid enough to have a pet like that )

I wonder!

What would be better?Getting bitten by a venomous snake,or being constricted by a 18ft. Python,Boa or Anaconda?

Yikes...nightmares are made of these idea's!!!

Puff adders are most probably responsible for more snake bite reports than any other snake in South Africa. This is due to its large distribution and the fact that they are ambush predators.

Their venom is cytotoxic and the effect of this as you can see is not pleasant. If a bite goes untreated it may result in limb loss and possibly death.

The cytotoxic venom causes necrosis in the muscle tissue which in turn causes severe hemorrhage and this might prevent movement in the effected limb.

And as I said, letting a bite go untreated is NOT a good idea.

But I would like to mention four very important things:

1.You are more likely to be kicked to death by a donkey than being killed by a snake.
2.The most venomous snake in the world is the one that just bit you.
3.If you stay out of its way and treat all snakes with respect you should never have to worry about any of the above.
4.And if you want to fiddle with snakes, buy yourself a decent book on identifying Southern African snakes and refer to it before grabbing anything by the tail! Any book by Johan Marais is fine and has good illustrations which help identifying the snake you are considering to handle.

you said "untreated" what steps would they take to treat a bite like that?

ive seen some cases of foot or leg ulcers that end up like that... not a lekker sight.

The first thing to do after a bite is to see what snake just bit you eg. colour patterning ( don't try to catch the thing, it could bite again ( :blush: and again :blush: ) ).
Then remember NEVER to use a torniquite ( something that constricts the bloodflow ie a belt or a tie ) unless you know the procedure of using it and the kind of snake
( never to be used on any cytotoxic venom, you will just worsen the effect). :blink:

Then get to a hospital. If you don't trust the hospital, stay in the parking lot and monitor for any symptoms, you could always have had a "dry" bite. :whistle:

Also a good thing to do is to monitor things like swelling, make a mark with a pen every some minutes how the swelling progress, this helps a lot with treatment.

And then lastly your T can bite you :evil: , and for some funky reason you develop a allergic reaction :sick: , there is no one home to get you to hospital and you DIE...

So a venomous snake and any other creature out there can KILL anybody, thus, don't
get bitten...