Don’t Move A Muscle First air-breather featured on the blog…and she’s
Don’t Move A Muscle First air-breather featured on the blog…and she’s a beauty! The venom of the banded sea krait (Laticauda colubrina) has hemotoxic, myotoxic, and neurotoxic properties. In simpler terms: it ravages red blood cells, destroys muscle tissue, and wrecks nerves. The effects? Muscle pain, weakness, difficulty moving, and immobility. Paralysis may also set in, beginning with symptoms such as drooping eyelids, lockjaw, and slurred speech, before progressing into breathing difficulty, seizures, or coma. Death results from ventilatory failure. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of sea snake bites is often delayed. Symptoms may appear hours after the bite, and the bite itself can often be missed due to the snake’s tiny fangs (and the tiny puncture wounds it makes). First aid treatment involves pressure immobilization and placing the bitten area in a dependent position (*cough* below the heart). However, sea snake anti-venom does exist, and must be administered ASAP. Watching out for potential respiratory failure in bite victims would be good too.Image source: EuJae Im Reference: Balhara and Stolbach. 2014. -- source link
#sea snake#sea krait#laticauda#reptile#snake bites#first aid#venomous#dangerous animals#marine biology#zoology