Fastest Striking Venomous Snake

Najakeeper

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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:

 

The Snark

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What is the speed of the Western Diamondback? I understand they are right up near the top, but I don't think they reload that quick.
 

Beardo

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I thought that Puff Adders (Bitis) were the fastest strikers, but I'm sure thats all relative, lol.
 

josh_r

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Cool vids, but you're not showing the full potential of the strike. If you want to see some serious death adder strikes, look at viperkeepers YouTube video "the death adder show".

Also, hoser is widely known as a joke here in Australia. Those names have no credibility. From what i understand, At a taxonomy level, most of the species he named do not exist. I will gather more information on this from Australian herpers and taxonomists.
 
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Najakeeper

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Cool vids, but you're not showing the full potential of the strike. If you want to see some serious death adder strikes, look at viperkeepers YouTube video "the death adder show".

Also, hoser is widely known as a joke here in Australia. Those names have no credibility. From what i understand, At a taxonomy level, most of the species he named do not exist. I will gather more information on this from Australian herpers and taxonomists.
Thanks for the comment, mate.

I watch Al's videos and I love them. But I feed my Acanthophis out of their cage and unfortunately you don't get the "worm coming out of the substrate" effect this way.

As it comes to the Dajarra species of Acanthophis, Dr. Wolfgang Wuster thinks they are a form of Acanthophis rugosus based on the mitochondrial DNA analysis that he has performed. As a geneticist myself, I disagree with him on this. I don't think taxonomy should be solely based on mitochondrial DNA evidence. This species is a desert specialist and putting them in the same bag with an Indonesian animal does not work for me. Now, I tend to agree that Raymond Hoser is a bit of a joke because of his demonstrations with "venomoid" snakes etc. But Hoser already has one Acanthophis species that he has described in 1998, which everybody accepts (A.wellsi) and I think people will also accept the A.woolfi in the end, maybe even A.cummungi, which are the other snakes that I have shown in this video, currently called Acanthophis hawkei by Wolfgang Wuster, again based on mitochondrial DNA. Anyway, there is one certain thing to agree on, Acanthophis taxonomy is still a giant mess.

Cheers...
 
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thesnakehandler

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Adders

Josh R, sorry to shatter your fantasy, but your claims against me (Hoser) are fantasy on your part.
A perusal of the most recent snake and other reptile books published here in Australia (e.g. Wilson or the book by Eipper) confirm the validity of my Death Adder taxonomy, including useage of the name Acanthophis woolfi Hoser, 1998 and likewise for species as diverse as Pseudechis (Pailsus) pailsei Hoser, 1998, P. rossignollii Hoser, 2000, etc.
Were it not for the deliberate misinformation by Wuster, his fake internet accounts and the rabble of his idiot friends, few people would be confused about Acanthophis taxonomy, as it is considerably simpler than that of other groups such as the Rattlesnakes, Asiatic Pitvipers, Kukri snakes, blind snakes, dwarf boas, etc and my paper of 1998 sorted them out in a very logical, obvious and overdue way, corroborated by several independent published studies since.
Notwithstanding the misinformation and lies by Wuster (see his own stupid entries on the Uetz reptile-database for the various Death Adder species), science does eventually get to the truth and in another few decades when Wuster has departed, people will see the obvious and use the appropriate names.
The same thing happened in terms of Charles Darwin and his evolution theory. It made sense from day one, but ratbags, masquerading as scientists used their influence to attack and discredit it for the duration of Darwin's lifetime and long after he died, delaying it's general adoption for decades after he first proposed it.
For anyone with a genuine interest in Death Adder taxonomy, I shall post a link to the paper below:
http://www.smuggled.com/addtax2.htm
All the best
Snake Man, Raymond Hoser

a3.jpg a2.jpg a1.jpg
 

The Snark

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Hoser and Wuster

I have reviewed Dr. Wolfgang Wuster and Raymond Hoser. There is obvious major disagreements between the two and ongoing disputes on various forums. I believe I can speak on behalf of the AB community in stating that AB does not need this to spill over into it's forums.

For future reference which involve these two persons, I strongly suggest that citing either person be restricted to published scientific papers properly subjected to the appropriate peer reviews per established academic standards.
 

Munch

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Oxyuranus is fast from what I hear they bit Australian kids 3-5 times before they knew they got bit. I guess it depends on the force of how hard they bite.
 

Najakeeper

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Hoser vs. others debate will go on so no need to go into that here I guess. But it is good to see that you google your name mate :).

Death adders are the fastest when one measures from ready to strike to strike to ready to strike. Other Aussie elapids are more active snakes and they may strike consecutively really fast but Acanthophis still have the fastest strike.
 

Najakeeper

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"Someone" :) here mentioned their "dogthing" moves faster my puppies and the adders got very jealous so I am posting a few pictures so you guys can adore them :D.

Joking aside, now I have pairs of three different mainland species of Acanthophis! Here are the pictures:

Acanthophis hawkei/cummingi(?) "Northern Flood Plains", large and ready to breed female:



Acanthophis woolfi(?) "Dajarra Desert", yearling male waiting for her girl:



Acanthophis antarcticus "Sydney", will turn out to be large and deep red. Amazing, amazing, amazing...:

Male:



Female:


Now I need to find A.pyrrhus and A.wellsi, and sell my car to get them if they become available ever in Europe... :)
 

The Snark

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My puppy has a much cuter tail.
Actually this fastest, most foofy, most boinky is dripping with modern sensationalism and missing the real issue: evolution and environment. If it's developed a blinding speed strike it did it for a reason. Researching the origin dog, the dingo from which our dogthing is narrowly removed, their natural habitat obviously produced their incredible speed. Outback Australia. If the intermediate predator doesn't get a debilitating bite in almost instantly it's go hungry time. The environment is hostile, prey is few and very far between and the competition is fierce.

So you look at a death adder and the shape it has evolved. This thing isn't even a sprinter. It's a fixed sproink in the cafeteria of life. It's hunting range is most likely extremely small, probably commonly a few hundred meters for it's entire life span. So it developed along the line of the dingo but without the ranging ability. Thus it packs a very deadly venom with an incredibly fast delivery system. Incidentally, it's also an expert at energy conservation. Wham and sleep, repeat. As a comparison, take the other end of the snake spectrum with O. Hannah. In northern India they can range several kilometers a day. Prey is very abundant. It's a very robust animal that can feed repeatedly in a single day or it can go for weeks without eating. It's strike speed in the road rally of life is down there along the lines of a Toyota Corolla to the Death Adder being a Maserati. The king doesn't need speed. When it finds prey it grazes almost like a cow, putting away a large clutch of baby snakes in one sitting or a pond full of tadpoles. It's venom is comparatively weak but it's a huge animal so it delivers sauce by the cup full.
Different strokes thing. Evolution always turns me into a starry eyed child filled with wonder.
 
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Najakeeper

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My puppy has a much cuter tail.
We have to agree to disagree here, can yours has a tail that wiggles like a worm? ;)

Yeah, evolution of Aussie snakes is a great topic. Death Adders evolved into fixed weapons, they barely move but within their strike range, they are grease lightening as they can not afford to miss. Similar story with the "most venomous", Inland Taipans live in an arid environment with little amount of prey so each time they bite, they need to kill hence the crazy venom strength. Cool to make remarks about all these in hindsight :).
 

The Snark

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I could wax lyrical about the ecology and environment of the Aus outback. It's like a window in time. Pre homo erectus destruction the critters you see are pretty much what they were and doing what they were doing 50 million years ago.
The lethal aspect of some of their venomous animals certainly speaks of severe hardship in capturing prey.

I'm going to leave the intimate knowledge of the south end of north bound animals to others.
 

Najakeeper

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Macro image of the tail of a Death Adder, one of mine actually.

Made fools out of billions of mice, birds, lizards, frogs and counting...

 

The Snark

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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.
 

Najakeeper

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Acanthophis antarcticus 'Sydney Red' feeding on a pinky mouse:

[YOUTUBE]UvcAKZHSess[/YOUTUBE]
 
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