Fastest Striking Venomous Snake

[Najakeeper]

Master of camouflage, the Acanthophis antarcticus from Sydney:

 

[josh_r]

A nice little paradox. An Elapid uses it's tail to entice prey while a Viper uses it to warn off enemies. Parallel opposite evolution.

there are many viperidae and crotalinae that use their tails as a caudal lure as well. They are not restricted to using the tail as a defense mechanism. Even the rattlesnakes... Crotalus lepidus klauberi, for example, utilize caudal luring while they are young with a yellow or orange tail to entice lizards. This behavior is known for many of the montane rattlesnake species. pseudocerastes urarachnoides has teh most oddly unique caudal lure... looks like a spider or something.

 

[Najakeeper]

there are many viperidae and crotalinae that use their tails as a caudal lure as well. They are not restricted to using the tail as a defense mechanism. Even the rattlesnakes... Crotalus lepidus klauberi, for example, utilize caudal luring while they are young with a yellow or orange tail to entice lizards. This behavior is known for many of the montane rattlesnake species. pseudocerastes urarachnoides has teh most oddly unique caudal lure... looks like a spider or something.

He was trying to point to the irony there as caudal luring is mostly done by vipers but here it is an elapid filing the viper niche.

 

[The Snark]

An odd bit of observation. On many occasions I have encountered rattlers by the noise they make. Sheesh. Maybe 50 or more times in the wild. But the oddity is the noise is most often omni directional. It's a space filling sound that is extremely hard to pin point the source. I've watched my horses, cattle and dogs cast about trying to locate where the snake is. The horse, I suppose by being the tallest, is best at locating the snake. Methinks nature overdid itself a little in creating this omnidirectional sonic warning system.

 

[Najakeeper]

Acanthophis hawkei female:

Acanthophis sp. "Dajarra Desert" male:

 

[viper69]

Faster-- documented where?

When someone tells me SOMETHING is the fastest X in the world.... Relatively speaking, on principle I cannot accept their word, no more than they should accept mine.

I watched the video, and that snake looks to my eye (not exactly a scientific measuring device hahah) no faster than my boa.

Seriously how do you know it's the fastest striking venomous snake? As opposed to a Gaboon Viper, or another pit viper?

 

[Najakeeper]

When someone tells me SOMETHING is the fastest X in the world.... Relatively speaking, on principle I cannot accept their word, no more than they should accept mine.

I watched the video, and that snake looks to my eye (not exactly a scientific measuring device hahah) no faster than my boa.

Seriously how do you know it's the fastest striking venomous snake? As opposed to a Gaboon Viper, or another pit viper?

To tell you the truth, I haven't read a scientific study on it and I agree there are a lot of vipers, which are very "fast" strikers. The deal with Acanthophis is they are strike ready within .13 to .15 seconds from the moment they start the initial strike. I think that is nothing shy of amazing.

 

[The Snark]

When someone tells me SOMETHING is the fastest X in the world.... Relatively speaking, on principle I cannot accept their word, no more than they should accept mine.

I watched the video, and that snake looks to my eye (not exactly a scientific measuring device hahah) no faster than my boa.

Seriously how do you know it's the fastest striking venomous snake? As opposed to a Gaboon Viper, or another pit viper?

Quite some time ago I read of a study using a modified radar gun used by traffic control to measure the speed of various rattlesnakes. I'm wondering if that is still being used in some form. It was interesting that they were getting comprehensible readings of the actual motion, ~450 mph for the western diamondback as example.

 

[viper69]

Quite some time ago I read of a study using a modified radar gun used by traffic control to measure the speed of various rattlesnakes. I'm wondering if that is still being used in some form. It was interesting that they were getting comprehensible readings of the actual motion, ~450 mph for the western diamondback as example.

It was rigged, just like all police radar guns are! J/K hehehehe

 

[The Snark]

It was rigged, just like all police radar guns are! J/K hehehehe

If the truth be told it had to have been. About 3 years later I worked with some techs trying to perfect a fast acquisition configuration. They were versed in RF and refined the source emission into bursts using a staged capacitive discharge along with limiting the emissions so they weren't in danger of cooking the subjects and controlling the emissive scatter sprayed all over the lab. I suggested a cascade jfet array that was far faster than the normal acquisition and extrapolation, and allowed a tightly controlled window. It appeared to me very workable but I have never heard of any follow up work done. Since then of course they have developed a much more accurate sensing system using the doppler effect but I haven't heard of it being used on snakes either.

PS No, radar guns are radar guns. Quite accurate, but their use must meet certain criteria as the gun held rigidly still and the target within a prescribed trajectory relative to the gun.

 

[viper69]

If the truth be told it had to have been. About 3 years later I worked with some techs trying to perfect a fast acquisition configuration. They were versed in RF and refined the source emission into bursts using a staged capacitive discharge along with limiting the emissions so they weren't in danger of cooking the subjects and controlling the emissive scatter sprayed all over the lab. I suggested a cascade jfet array that was far faster than the normal acquisition and extrapolation, and allowed a tightly controlled window. It appeared to me very workable but I have never heard of any follow up work done. Since then of course they have developed a much more accurate sensing system using the doppler effect but I haven't heard of it being used on snakes either.

PS No, radar guns are radar guns. Quite accurate, but their use must meet certain criteria as the gun held rigidly still and the target within a prescribed trajectory relative to the gun.

If only I could figure out why a Ryobi hand drill I have, which has been stored in a box since 2006 at room temperature is all of a sudden sticky to touch. What's more weird is that of all the plastic pieces on the drill, only the blue plastic is sticky, and only on the exterior, not on in the interior where the battery inserts into. Piece of crap. I WAS going to test out a 2" hole saw bit.

 

[jigalojey]

I shot this video to show once again how fast Death Adders(Acanthophis) strike. They are the fastest striking snake (A death adder can go from a strike position, to strike and envenoming their prey, and back to strike position again, in less than 0.15 of a second) and the strike is very hard to catch even in 10x slow motion. Amazing creatures really, surely must stay out of the strike range with these puppies.

[YOUTUBE]9-z9fmOC37Q[/YOUTUBE]

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-z9fmOC37Q )

And here is a picture that I took before feeding, I think it turned out to be a nice one:

I want to know how the hell you got a Death Adder in Germany.

 

[The Snark]

If only I could figure out why a Ryobi hand drill I have, which has been stored in a box since 2006 at room temperature is all of a sudden sticky to touch. What's more weird is that of all the plastic pieces on the drill, only the blue plastic is sticky, and only on the exterior, not on in the interior where the battery inserts into. Piece of crap. I WAS going to test out a 2" hole saw bit.

Few plastics are fully stable. When they become sticky they (commonly) have reacted with oxygen. I'll trade you for my other's Sony walkman/cellphone, the entire outside coating of which turned to goo. Every now and then, or in the case of cheap manufacturing which skips a process, acrylic sheets as used in terrariums suffer from this. You can actually push a knife or other sharp object slowly right through the sheet. In fact, all acrylics that aren't brittle will permit this, it taking a few weeks for the point to penetrate. But with the cheap or unstable stuff it only takes a couple of hours.

 

[Najakeeper]

I want to know how the hell you got a Death Adder in Germany.

Several species were imported to Europe when Aussie export was open. Several zoos also keep them and have surplus stock to sell. But unfortunately for obvious reasons, gene pool is limited and most snakes are quite inbred.

 

[jigalojey]

Several species were imported to Europe when Aussie export was open. Several zoos also keep them and have surplus stock to sell. But unfortunately for obvious reasons, gene pool is limited and most snakes are quite inbred.

Thank god that makes me feel alot better.

 

[Najakeeper]

Thank god that makes me feel alot better.

Well, I am sure some people have smuggled Acanthophis, Pseudechis or Notechis in their underwear to Europe as well at some point. I think Australia's export laws are incredibly stupid. You can buy as much Kangaroo meat as you want but you cannot get a live Kangaroo? Controlled collection and captive breeding is very valuable for the future health of native wildlife. Now, to buy a baby pair of Australian Death Adders in Europe, you need to pay €2000, which in turn fuels more illegal collection and smuggling as it is worth to take the risk for the crooks.

 

[viper69]

Few plastics are fully stable. When they become sticky they (commonly) have reacted with oxygen. I'll trade you for my other's Sony walkman/cellphone, the entire outside coating of which turned to goo. Every now and then, or in the case of cheap manufacturing which skips a process, acrylic sheets as used in terrariums suffer from this. You can actually push a knife or other sharp object slowly right through the sheet. In fact, all acrylics that aren't brittle will permit this, it taking a few weeks for the point to penetrate. But with the cheap or unstable stuff it only takes a couple of hours.

I did a search for QUITE a while on the net, and I'm not the only one w/this brand to suffer the fate of bad manufacturing. Well I fixed it for now at least. I rubbed it with alcohol, the whole body, it's not sticky now. Unsure if this was a surface coating that was degrading or the entire blue plastic body. The inside of the battery housing is fine, so I'm thinking it's an exterior finish of sorts, IDK. Another guy used acetone and it didn't come back for him.

I'm waiting for metal to be popular again, I'll die first before that happens. God forbid a company should make something that lasts anymore

 

[jigalojey]

I have to respectfully disagree. If the laws allowed you guys to order what species you wish our native fauna would get hit dam hard from the sudden allowance of the world to choose what they like out of our diverse backyard. There is already many species over here struggling to survive and the last thing we need is greedy collectors plunging the wildlife stocks leaving behind nothing., we have had Tarantula species over here get wiped out and that's only from Aussie Tarantula keepers imagine what the world would do! Now sure people do attempt to smuggle but a huge percentage of them would be caught because Australia has exceptional customs that really don't miss much. I would rather a few clowns try and smuggle with a VERY small percentage getting through then tens of thousands of native Australian fauna getting smashed from money hungry collectors /end rant

 

[Najakeeper]

You know, there is a very fine middle point to that. There are a lot of Australian reptile breeders with legal collecting licences. They sell almost all species in Australia without damaging the native population numbers. Give them controlled exporting licences for CAPTIVE BRED animals. Gila Monsters are being exported all around the world even though they are tightly regulated under CITES. All Gila Monsters that are being sold are captive bred animals. Open legal export for captive bred animals and you can both solve the smuggling problem and reduce the pressure on local wildlife.

 

[jigalojey]

I just cannot see it working, to much room for shenanigans and it screams loop holes.