A two-year-old girl has killed a snake in revenge for biting her lip by sinking her teeth into it.
The toddler, identified only by her initials S.E., was playing in the back garden of her family home in the village of Kantar, in Bingol, Turkey, when her screams were heard by neighbours on August 10.
They dashed to help her, but found she had a 20-inch (50cm) snake clamped in her mouth and a bite mark on her lower lip.
The youngster was rushed to Bingol Maternity and Children’s Hospital where she was put under observation for 24 hours.
She is now reported to be well and recovering.
Her relieved father Mehmet Ercan, who was at work when the snake struck, explained: ‘Allah has protected her, really.
‘Our neighbours have told me that the snake was in my child’s hand, she was playing with it and then it bit her.
‘Then she has bitten the snake back as a reaction.’
Poisonous snakes include vipers, rattlesnakes, cobras, kraits, mambas, and the American coral snake. Pit vipers are the snakes of most concern in North America. The rattlesnakes, moccasins, cottonmouths, and copperheads account for 95% of the annual snakebites in the United States.
Venomous snakes have unique holes in between their nostrils and eyes that allow them to detect slight temperature differences in prey; non-venomous snakes do not have pits. An easy difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes is their pupil shape.
Snakes use these venoms for two main purposes. The first is foraging, where venom helps the snake to overpower its prey before eating it. The second is self-defence against potential predators – this is how millions of people get bitten, and around 100,000 killed, every year. This is why snakes are poisonous.
Note that snakes can also die from eating poisoned rodents. You don’t want to eat a snake dosed up with warfarin or other toxins. Pay attention to context. It’s apparently fine to cook and eat poisonous snakes- cooking is sufficient to inactivate any venomous residue.
