The basic definition of dangerous is able or likely to cause harm or injury. This means that a snake living in your backyard, even if it is smaller, less venomous, or less aggressive, can be more dangerous than a large, highly venomous, or aggressive snake across the globe simply because it is more likely to harm you. Despite this, there are a number of snakes that are generally regarded as the most dangerous snake in the world.
Table of Contents
1. Inland Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus)
The Inland Taipan is generally regarded as the world’s most venomous snake, with a single bite enough to kill 100 adult humans within an hour. In addition to the impressive toxicity of their venom, the hyaluronidase enzyme accelerates the rate at which the venom is absorbed into the victim’s body. The neurotoxins, procoagulants, and myotoxins in their venom can cause both clottings and hemorrhage in blood vessels, hinder breathing, damage muscles, and paralyze the nervous system.
Inland taipans are usually dark tan, ranging from a brownish-light green to a rich, dark brown, depending on the season. A bit smaller than coastal taipans, these can grow to approximately 5.5 feet long.
Native to Australia, they are mostly found in the southern region of the country, Queensland, as well as the northern territory. The inland taipan is a reclusive snake who prefers to live tucked away, often in clay burrows previously dug by other animals.
Most active during the early morning and afternoon, this snake is very shy and prefers to avoid human contact. When encountered by people, inland taipans are not particularly aggressive but will defend themselves by coiling into a tight S-shape before darting out to bite once or multiple times.
Their prey consists of small and medium-sized mammals, primary rodents such as the long-haired rat, plains rat, and house mouse. Looking for food and basking in the sun is how these snakes spend the majority of their time.
Part of the reason inland taipans change color through the seasons is for thermoregulation, which allows them to absorb more light in the colder months.
The potency of their venom, rather than their temperament, it was earned them their nickname of “fierce snake.”
2. King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah)
The thing that makes King Cobras so unique is not the strength of their venom, but the amount of venom they can inject into their victims. Each bite touts approximately 7 milliliters of venom, and three or four bites in rapid succession are common when the snake attacks. Neurotoxins found in the venom paralyze their prey and eventually prevent breathing, creating a 50% fatality rate for untreated bites in humans.
King Cobras are usually brown or dark olive in color, with white or pale yellow crossbands down their body. This snake holds the record for the world’s longest venomous snake, commonly reaching three to four meters long, but capable of measuring up to 18 feet long.
These snakes are native to forested areas across Asia, with notable populations in southern China, northern India, Indonesia, the Malay peninsula, and the Philippines. They typically prefer to live in areas close to forest streams, agricultural spaces, and trees.
Like most snakes, King Cobras are shy and avoid confrontation, however, when provoked, they can become incredibly aggressive. When they feel threatened, cobras often lift their head as high as one-third of their total length off the ground and flare out the “hood” or skin around their head to appear larger and more intimidating.
King cobras usually prefer to eat other snakes, even venomous ones, but will eat lizards, rodents, and birds when food is scarce. When not hunting or defending
themselves, they are surprisingly nurturing towards their young. Female king cobras are dedicated and caring, unlike most snakes, building a nest and guarding their eggs until they are hatched.
King Cobra Fun Facts:
Unlike most snakes, King Cobras are monogamous, only mating with one partner for their entire life.
King Cobras have such slow metabolism that after a large meal, they can survive for months without needing to eat again.
3. Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis)
Black Mambas are infamous for being the most venomous snake in their home range, Africa. Because their extremely toxic venom causes systemic paralysis,
people who are bitten should receive antivenom treatment as soon as possible for a chance at survival. It is said that their venom is so potent that just two drops are enough to kill the average adult human, and by adulthood, black mambas can store up to 20 drops in each fang.
Rather than the color of their body, which can be olive, yellowish-brown, khaki, or gunmetal, they get their name from the color on the inside of their mouth. Black mambas are between 6.5 and 8 feet long, with a maximum length of 14 feet from head to tail.
Black mambas inhabit vast areas of hill country, dry brushlands, and forests across Sub-Saharan countries in Africa. Unfortunately, much of this land has a large human population, so incidents can occur frequently.
Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are particularly dangerous areas since black mambas will attack with repeated bites
when provoked or cornered. While they prefer to avoid humans when possible, their self-defense is borderline aggressive when needed.
Black mambas prefer to eat small mammals and birds but will eat other snakes if they have to. When they aren’t eating, these snakes are capable of traveling at up to 12 miles per hour, which is partly why they are so dangerous.
Black Mamba Fun Facts:
In the wild, a black mamba can live to 11 years old, but up to 20 years in captivity.
Thanks to the impressive speed of 12 miles per hour at which black mambas can travel, they can also kill the fastest.
4. Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis carinatus)
The saw-scaled viper is well-known as the snake responsible for the most human deaths each year, largely due to the lack of readily available antivenom. Although their venom is lethal less than 10% of the time, their aggressive nature and inhabitation of well-populated areas mean that they bite often and without hesitation.
Their scales are typically a mosaic of brown, tan, grey, or orange with darker dorsal scales and lateral spots. Saw-scaled vipers are small snakes, typically measuring between one and three feet long, with a stout body and pear-shaped head.
These vipers are usually found in dry, arid regions just north of the Equator such as Africa, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Their coloring makes them well-suited to camouflaging themselves in sandy areas, often completely covered except for their head.
Unlike some of the other snakes we’ve discussed, saw-scaled vipers are highly irritable and aggressive and use a looping figure-8 as a defensive posture. Rather than a hissing sound like other snakes, these snakes rub special, serrated scales together to make a sizzling sound.
Because they are nocturnal, saw-scaled vipers typically hunt at night and prefer lizards, toads, and baby birds. They also use their venom on their more intense prey, like larger mammals, birds, other snakes, amphibians, and even scorpions.
Saw-Scaled Viper Fun Facts:
These snakes actually move sideways (sidewinding locomotion), unlike most snakes, which move by slithering forward.
Saw-scaled vipers often climb into trees and bushes to avoid inclement weather such as rain.
5. Eastern Tiger Snake (Notechis scutatus)
This snake is known for its highly potent venom, which has neurotoxins, coagulants, myotoxins, and hemolysins which create a 60% mortality rate in humans. If bitten by an Eastern Tiger Snake, the victim will suffer extreme pain, excessive sweating, trouble breathing, numbness, body tingling, and paralysis.
These snakes can come in a range of colors and sizes including all shades of yellows, browns, all the way to jet black are typically banded along their body. Tiger snakes can grow to lengths of three to five feet long.
Native to the grasslands and mountains of southeast Australia and coastal islands, Eastern Tiger Snakes enjoy inhabiting creeks, rivers, and wetlands. Although they are ground-dwelling snakes, they are great climbers and excellent swimmers.
These snakes prefer to avoid humans if at all possible and can become aggressive when startled. They usually prefer to slither away rather than fight, but will raise, hiss loudly, and inflate their body as defensive maneuvers. If those fail, and the snake feels threatened, they will strike.
Eastern Tiger Snakes primarily live on frogs, but will also eat fish, birds, other reptiles, and small mammals. They have also been known to eat carrion when other food was not available.
Eastern Tiger Snake Fun Fact:
These snakes are skilled swimmers, capable of hunting in the water and can even stay underwater for up to nine minutes at a time.
Rather than laying eggs like most snakes, Eastern Tiger Snakes give birth to live young.
Noronha, A. (2020, October 26). 10 Most Venomous Snakes In The World. Travel.Earth. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://travel.earth/dangerous-snakes-in-the-world/
SafarisAfricana. (2021, May 6). Most Venomous Snakes In The World: 11 of the world’s most dangerous snakes. SafarisAfricana. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://safarisafricana.com/most-venomous-snakes/
1. Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis Carinatus) – The Deadliest Snake In The World. Although its venom is not very potent, the Saw-Scaled Viper is considered as one of the world's deadliest snakes as it is believed to be responsible for more human fatalities than all other snakes put together.
The saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus) may be the deadliest of all snakes, since scientists believe it to be responsible for more human deaths than all other snake species combined.
The black mamba, for example, injects up to 12 times the lethal dose for humans in each bite and may bite as many as 12 times in a single attack. This mamba has the fastest-acting venom of any snake, but humans are much larger than its usual prey so it still takes 20 minutes for you to die.
The Box Jellyfish is the most venomous animal in the world. Death can occur minutes after being stung. There are 51 species of box jellyfish, and four — Chironex fleckeri, Carukia barnesi, Malo kingi, and Chironex yamaguchii — are highly venomous!
The blue-ringed octopodes (Hapalochlaena spp.) produce tetrodotoxin, which is extremely toxic to even the healthiest adult humans, though the number of actual fatalities they have caused is far lower than the number caused by spiders and snakes, with which human contact is more common.
Foxes and raccoons are common predators of snakes. Guinea hens, turkeys, pigs, and cats will also help keep snakes away. If foxes are indigenous to your area, fox urine is a very good natural repellent for snakes when spread around your property.
Just like humans have special cells in their bodies, called immune cells, that fight diseases that get into the blood system, snakes have special immune cells that can fight their own venom and protect them from it if it gets into their own blood.
Yet, the reticulated python - the world's longest and heaviest snake - remained constricted around the king cobra and killed the cobra while too being dead.
Four types of venomous snakes exist in the United States: rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths (also known as water moccasins) and coral snakes. Each year, more than 7,000 Americans are bitten by one of these snakes.
Black snakes are not venomous nor aggressive, but if threatened or cornered they may bite as a last resort. Black snakes are also excellent swimmers. The most intimidating feature of black snakes is their size as some can reach eight feet in length.
Pain : Burning, bursting or throbbing pain may develop immediately after the bite and spread proximally up the bitten limb. Draining lymph nodes soon become painful. Krait and sea snake bites maybe virtually painless. Local swelling : Viper bites produce more intense local reaction than other snakes.
Twenty minutes after being bitten you may be lose the ability to talk. After one hour you're probably comatose, and by six hours, without an antidote, you are dead. A person will experience "pain, paralysis and then death within six hours," says Damaris Rotich, the curator for the snake park in Nairobi.
The inland or western taipan, Oxyuranus microlepidotus, is the most venomous snake in the world, according to Britannica. Native to Australia, this snake has the deadliest venom based on median lethal dose, or LD50, tests on mice.
Around 3000 species of the snake are present across the globe. Only 20 percent (~600 species) is venomous and only 7 percent (~200 species) snakes are able to kill a human. In Indian context more than 270 snake species are present out of which around 60 species are venomous.
A pair of nasolacrimal ducts drain the fluid into spaces in the roof of the mouth. Because the spectacles are attached to the skin, the tears cannot overflow from their eyelids as they do in mammals. This is why snakes cannot cry.
Can Snakes Eat Chocolate? While technically a snake can have chocolate, as most reptiles are okay to have a small amount (a very small amount), we will advise against it. It is probably likely to cause diarrhea in reptiles if they eat too much.
Snakes do drink water but not as often as you would think. A snake gets most of its hydration from meals such as rodents' blood and the water within the fur. Snakes drink water in a more unusual method. Their skin folds which as like drain into their mouth.
Not only can baleen whales emit calls that travel farther than any other voice in the animal kingdom, these giants of the deep also create the loudest vocalisations of any creature on earth: the call of a blue whale can reach 180 decibels – as loud as a jet plane, a world record.
1. Pufferfish. The liver, kidneys, and spikes of pufferfish contain dangerous nerve toxins poisonous to humans. While the meat of some species is considered an expensive delicacy in some cultures, it can be fatal if prepared incorrectly and thus only eaten when cooked by a licensed chef.
And once that paralysis hits your diaphragm and rib muscles, you only have a few minutes before you suffocate to death. No, the fastest-acting venom on Earth belongs to the Australian Box Jellyfish or sea wasp. It's not the most potent venom out there. But encounter one of these guys and you'll be dead in 15 minutes.
Commonly known as deadly nightshade, belladonna, devil's cherry, and dwale. One of the most toxic plants found in the Western Hemisphere, all parts of the plant contain tropane alkaloids – as do those of its equally deadly sister species A.
Venom is a specialised type of poison that has evolved for a specific purpose. It is actively injected via a bite or sting. Because venom has a mixture of small and large molecules, it needs a wound to be able to enter the body, and to be effective must find its way into the bloodstream.
One number one choice for the best snake pet is the corn snake. Of the bunch, corn snakes are considered the most docile and gentle. They are also known for being easy to handle and easy to feed. They are nocturnal and love to burrow.
Generally, the more colorful and patterned a snake is, the more dangerous it is. Most solid colored snakes are relatively harmless; though there are always exceptions to this rule.
The three-chambered reptilian heart is composed of two atria, which receive blood from the lungs and body, and a large ventricle, which pumps blood into arteries.
Snakes bite either to capture prey or for self-defense. But since there are so many different types of snakes — including both venomous and non-venomous — not every snake bite is created equal. Different species carry different types of venom.
Unfortunately, when it comes to snakes and whether they can survive being cut in half, the answer is no. When a snake is cut in half, both halves will die due to loss of blood and nerve function.
Most snake envenomings and fatalities occur in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, with India reporting the most snakebite deaths of any country.
Ilha da Queimada Grande in Brazil has been called one of the world's deadliest islands because it has the highest concentration of venomous snakes anywhere in the world.
The ball python is the longest-lived snake species in the world and numerous snakes in captivity have reached the age of between 25 – 30 years with the correct care, that is a seriously long time to have a pet snake.
The belief that the snake may chase the humans is not true since there is no way that the snakes may pursue the person actively in order to hurt them. The snakes normally bite because of two reasons, it can be to subdue the prey or for the self defense.
Stories of black mambas that chase and attack humans are common, but in fact the snakes generally avoid contact with humans. Most apparent cases of pursuit probably are examples of where witnesses have mistaken the snake's attempt to retreat to its lair when a human happens to be in the way.
Their venom is not the most potent among venomous snakes, but the amount of neurotoxin they can deliver in a single bite—up to two-tenths of a fluid ounce—is enough to kill 20 people, or even an elephant. King cobra venom affects the respiratory centers in the brain, causing respiratory arrest and cardiac failure.
Predation. Adult mambas have few natural predators aside from birds of prey. Brown snake eagles are verified predators of adult black mambas, of up to at least 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in). Other eagles known to hunt or at least consume grown black mambas include tawny eagles and martial eagles.
Mongooses are noted for their audacious attacks on highly venomous snakes, such as king cobras. The mongoose is a snake-killer by nature. These small mammals have some immunity to cobra venom, so they are one of the most successful animals that hunt cobra.
That's a great question. If a venomous snake is bitten by another venomous snake of the same species, (for example during a fight or mating), then it will not be affected. However, if a snake is bitten by a venomous snake of another species, it probably will be affected.
The Sind Krait can be easily classified as one of the most “toxic snakes” in India but there is no effective anti-venom to treat its bite, the study added.
And it's easy to believe they're right. After all, there's a 37-year-old list that says that 21 of the 25 most toxic snakes in the world are all from Australia.
Twenty minutes after being bitten you may be lose the ability to talk. After one hour you're probably comatose, and by six hours, without an antidote, you are dead. A person will experience "pain, paralysis and then death within six hours," says Damaris Rotich, the curator for the snake park in Nairobi.
Most snake envenomings and fatalities occur in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, with India reporting the most snakebite deaths of any country.
While male king cobras typically try to avoid fights, female king cobras become aggressive toward potential threats while they are guarding eggs. Unlike male king cobras, females will remain at the nest for up to three months. When the eggs hatch, the mother cobra leaves.
Purple snakes are generally considered harmless. They aren't poisonous and there have not been reports of serious health impacts following their bites.
How Long Do Snakes Live? Snakes reach sexual maturity within two to four years, depending on the species and living conditions. In perfect conditions, adult snakes live anywhere from 20 to 30 years, with natural predators and the encroachment of humans severely limiting the number of years most snakes live.
Snakes are therefore likely to be dichromatic in daylight, meaning they see two primary colours compared to the three that humans see. Most snakes examined in the study are sensitive to UV light, which allows them to see well in low light conditions.
The Box Jellyfish is the most venomous animal in the world. Death can occur minutes after being stung. There are 51 species of box jellyfish, and four — Chironex fleckeri, Carukia barnesi, Malo kingi, and Chironex yamaguchii — are highly venomous!
Black snakes are not venomous nor aggressive, but if threatened or cornered they may bite as a last resort. Black snakes are also excellent swimmers. The most intimidating feature of black snakes is their size as some can reach eight feet in length.
Their most remarkable type of prey, however, is other snakes! California Kingsnakes are “kings” because they hunt and devour various snake species, including other kingsnakes and even rattlesnakes – they are immune to rattlesnake venom!
Predation. Adult mambas have few natural predators aside from birds of prey. Brown snake eagles are verified predators of adult black mambas, of up to at least 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in). Other eagles known to hunt or at least consume grown black mambas include tawny eagles and martial eagles.
Steve Ludwin has been injecting himself with potent snake venom for decades. For the last 30 years, Steve Ludwin has carried out his controversial practice of collecting venom and injecting himself with it.
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