CNN: rattlesnakes still bite after death

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

FYI: for those who collect in rattlesnake country

http://www.cnn.com/NATURE/9906/16/health.snakes.reut/
<excerpt>
"Education to prevent snakebites should include warnings against
handling recently killed snakes." 

The doctors found that snakes thought to have been dead were responsible
for five of the 34 rattlesnake bites they treated between June 1997 and
April 1998. 

One of the five snakes had been shot and decapitated, one had just been
decapitated, two had been shot and one had been bludgeoned with a piece
of wood. None of the bites was fatal but one man had to have a finger
amputated. 

 "It's a reflex action," Suchard, a toxicologist, told Reuters in a
telephone interview. He said research published in 1972 showed that
snake heads could make striking-type motions toward a mouse for up to 60
minutes after decapitation. 
-- 
Flying Goat Graphics
http://www.flyinggoat.com
(Society of Vertebrate Paleontology member)
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