If you are bitten by a five-step snake, how many steps are safest to take?

In the wilds of Yongzhou there are strange snakes, black with white markings, which kill all the plants and trees they touch; they bite people and no one can resist them. - Liu Zongyuan, "On the Snake Catcher"

There's a snake ahead

The Snake Catcher's Talk is included in many versions of middle school textbooks. I believe many students have memorized and translated the entire text (although today they may only remember the first sentence). The black snake with white markings mentioned in this article is the Agkistrodon acutus.

Mature pit viper (Deinagkistrodon acutus), black with white markings | Wikimedia Commons

As long as my mouth is sharp enough, others can't see me

The pit viper belongs to the Viperidae subfamily. Due to its significant differences in appearance from other pit vipers, it is listed as a separate genus, namely, Pit viper .

In animals, these taxa with only one subordinate member are called "monotypic", such as the order Sphenisciformes, which contains only one family, Spheniscidae; the family Ailuridae, which contains only one genus, Ailurus. "Monotypic" also means that they are quite different from other closely related species.

The genus Ailurus was originally a monotypic genus, and the only species, Ailurus fulgens, originally had two subspecies - the lighter-colored Himalayan subspecies A. f. fulgens, and the darker-colored Chinese subspecies A. f. styani. A February 2020 study showed that the two subspecies are significantly different, supporting the promotion of them to species status | Carlos Delgado & Greg Hume / wikimedia

As the name suggests, the most obvious difference in appearance of the pit viper is its significantly extended and protruding snout , which is why its scientific name acutus comes from this, which means "sharp" in Latin. However, as the pit viper grows, this protruding snout will gradually wear away, becoming shorter and rounder, so the snout feature of some older individuals is not obvious .

Young pit viper | Zhitong

There is no clear explanation for the purpose of this pointed snout. Some people believe that this irregular head outline may serve to blur the appearance and hide itself.

Among snakes, there are other species that are very distantly related to the pit viper, and also have various irregular protrusions on their heads to varying degrees, such as the sharp-beaked snake Gonyosoma boulengeri and the long-nosed snake Ahaetulla nasuta, which also have elongated and protruding snouts, or the horned pit viper Protobothrops cornutus and the horn viper Atheris ceratophora, which have "horns" on their eye sockets.

In order, they are sharp-beaked snake, long-nosed thin snake, horned lancehead pit viper, and horn viper | TimVickers / wikimedia; viewmantra.com; Zhitong; Michael and Patricia Fogden / mindenpictures

There is a strange snake in the south, black in color and white in markings

In addition to its fuzzy external outline, the pit viper's "black body with white markings" color scheme can also help it better hide itself.

The "black" in "black substance" actually means dark color , not just black; the body color of the pit viper is dark brown or tan, and its body color will deepen with age. The "white markings" refer to the row of white diamond-shaped markings on the dark brown background of its back . This special arrangement is professionally called "square pattern". Many people easily take the "black substance and white markings" literally and mistakenly take the "Yongzhou strange snake" as the black and white coral snake.

The pattern of diamond-shaped corners connected or interlaced was called "Fangsheng pattern" in ancient times. It is combined with other textures to derive other composite patterns, such as Fangsheng Panchang pattern | Ryu Uchiyama / Nature Production; Wu Wei et al. / Journal of Packaging (2012); artxun.com

Coral snake | Briston / wikimedia

Thanks to the strong flow of literary works (Chinese textbooks), "Yongzhou Strange Snake" has become a well-known and popular label, just like "The Donkey of Guizhou". However, in fact, the pit viper is not unique to Yongzhou, Hunan , but is widely distributed throughout southern China. From the banks of the Yangtze River to the Nanling Mountains, from the treasure island of Taiwan to the mountain city of Chongqing, the pit viper is a common snake in the mountains.

The wide distribution and commonness of the species have given it a variety of common names. In Guizhou, it is called the "upturned nose snake ," referring to its pointed snout; in other places, it is called the "white flower snake ," referring to its white markings. In Hubei, it is called the "Qi (qí) snake," named after Qizhou (now Qichun County, Hubei), and is one of the "Four Treasures of Qizhou." Li Shizhen, a Qizhou native, also recorded and described its identification features in detail in his Compendium of Materia Medica.

Of course, among the many common names of the pit viper, the most widely known is the name "five-step snake".

To bite people, no one can resist

Whether it is "five-step snake", "seven-step snake" or "hundred-step snake", they all refer to the pit viper. These names describe the pit viper's venom , which is so venomous that it is exaggerated that a person will die within five steps after being bitten. Yes, it refers to the time, so don't think that you will be fine if you only take four steps and then stop moving . This is probably the so-called waiting to die on the spot.

But there is no need to panic too much. Compared with other venomous snakes in China, the mortality rate of the pit viper is not high.

The venom of the pit viper is mainly a blood circulation poison that will damage the blood circulation system and muscle tissue of the poisoned animal, causing bleeding, hemolysis, tissue swelling and necrosis in the animal body - in layman's terms, if you are poisoned after being bitten by a pit viper, there is a high probability that amputation will be required. Although the mortality rate is not high, the disability rate is extremely high ... It seems quite scary.

Are you panicking? | Cheng Te Hsu / Wikimedia Commons

As a venomous snake of the family Viperidae, the venom of the pit viper is injected into the body of the prey through the tubular fangs . The fangs usually lie horizontally in the tooth sheath, and when the mouth opens, they will stand up to bite the prey. The scientific name of the genus Deinagkistrodon comes from the Greek deinos (terrible) + agkistrodon (agkistrodon), and agkistrodon comes from agkistron (hook-shaped) + odon (tooth).

The length of the fangs of the pit viper is among the longest among venomous snakes , with an average length of about 11.5 mm and the longest reaching more than 15 mm. In comparison, the fangs of other common vipers in China rarely exceed 10 mm; and the fangs of most cobras, such as cobras and coral snakes, are even shorter, basically less than 5 mm.

The first pair of pit vipers' fangs are used as fangs, and there are often one or two pairs of spare fangs at the back. The fangs are like small needles, and the venom enters through the large hole at the top and is discharged from the small hole at the bottom.

Unlike other venomous snakes that use bright colors or obvious movements to tell you "I am poisonous, don't mess with me", the pit viper prefers to attack secretly and unexpectedly . As mentioned earlier, the pit viper's external contours and body color can help it hide itself better. Moreover, the pit viper also likes to hide itself in piles of dead leaves on the roadside, in cracks between rocks, or in the grass. The so-called "touching grass and trees will kill them all" actually means that the pit viper often stays in the grass for a long time without moving, and the plants under it are pressed down for a long time and wither.

In addition, the pit viper has a clear habit of rushing towards fire, and the lights in the hands of night walkers are obvious targets of attack for it.

These habits make the pit viper more likely to bite people than other venomous snakes.

The Chinese coral snake Sinomicrurus macclellandi has striking, bright colors; the Zhoushan cobra Naja atra rears up to intimidate its prey | Dan Rosenberg; Thomas Brown / flickr

If you are bitten by a poisonous snake, don't just wait online

So, what should you do if you are accidentally bitten by a venomous snake?

First of all, you should know that snake venom is essentially a type of highly specialized saliva, and the toxic components are mainly some proteins and peptides; the most effective way to deal with snake venom is to inject "antiven serum".

Anti-snake venom serum is not prepared directly from the "snake in question". It is generally prepared by injecting a certain dose of snake venom into livestock (such as horses, which are relatively heavy and low amounts of snake venom are not fatal to them) to cause an immune response in their blood and produce corresponding antibodies. The blood containing the antibodies is then extracted and further purified to obtain the anti-snake venom serum.

The index finger that has just been bitten by a cobra, and the corresponding anti-cobra venom serum | A big pig's hoof who is ashamed to reveal his name

The principle of preparing antivenom serum is somewhat similar to that of preparing vaccines, which means that antivenom serum is specific and can only be used to treat one thing at a time. A specific serum is only effective against a specific type (or a certain category) of snakes. Therefore, identifying which snake bit you is the most critical step.

If you are bitten by a venomous snake in the wild, don't wait online. First, try to identify the type of snake, remember its characteristics or take a photo, kill it if necessary, and hand it over to a doctor or professional for identification (remember to try to avoid catching live snakes with your bare hands ), and then rush to a regular hospital to get the corresponding anti-snake venom serum.

Before arriving at the hospital, wash the wound with clean running water as much as possible. As for various folk methods such as bandaging, cutting, cold compress, burning, herbal medicine, drinking, etc., they are not recommended. Most people who think these methods are effective and promote them are just because of survivor bias.

Some people even took the snake to the hospital with their bare hands. Fortunately, it was a non-venomous red-banded snake. I don't recommend imitating this.

Finally, I hope everyone remembers these two sentences:

If you encounter a snake in the wild, treat it as a venomous snake.

All venomous snakes are poisonous.

Author: Zhitong