Tooth and Claw: Venomous snakes
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Adam Hart discovers why rattlesnakes make good mothers and how deadly their venom is.\\nThere are over 600 different species of venomous snakes around the world with fearsome fangs delivering deadly venoms. Up to a third of the world\\u2019s population lives in fear of snakes, but are these reptiles misunderstood? And while Adam living in the UK where there are very few snakes, finds them fascinating, we shouldn\\u2019t forget that an estimated 7,400 people every day are bitten by snakes, and somewhere between 220\\u2013380 people die as a result. That\\u2019s around 2.7 million cases of venomous snake bites, and between 80,000 and 140,000 deaths a year - mostly in poorer communities in the developing world.\\nBut with habitat loss and persecution rife, do snakes have more to fear from us than we do from them. Perhaps we should change from Tooth and Claw to to fangs and scales as we dive into the world of snakes with Dr Emily Taylor, Professor of Biological Sciences at California State Polytechnic State University - she\\u2019s a specialist in rattlesnakes and their maternal skills and Hiral Naik, the Africa programme manager for Save the Snakes currently studying for a PhD on snake behaviour at University of Witwatersrand
Picture credit: Hiral Naik
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