As predators go, cone snails are slow-moving and lack the typical fighting parts. They've made up for it by producing a vast array of fast-acting toxins that target the nervous systems of prey. A new study reveals that some ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 19, 2015
0
957
The carnivorous reptiles (Varanus komodoensis) are known to bite prey and release them, leaving them to bleed to death from their wounds: the victims are reported to go into shock before the dragons kill and eat them.
Plants & Animals
May 18, 2009
4
0
A new study from biologists at The University of Texas at Arlington and an international team of collaborators provides the first comprehensive explanation of how snake venom regulatory systems evolved—an important example ...
Evolution
Jun 2, 2022
0
367
Snakes, some lizards and even a few mammals can have a venomous bite. Although these lineages split more than 300 million years ago, their venoms have evolved from the same ancestral salivary protein, reported scientists ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 22, 2021
0
350
An international team of scientists has found an innovative, animal-friendly manner for studying venom genes. The technique makes it possible to determine the unique venom production of a wide range of venomous animals that ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 18, 2021
0
130
We are not venomous, and neither are mice—but within our genomes lurks that potential, suggest scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and the Australian National University. ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 29, 2021
0
3225
Organoids have become an important tool for studying many disease processes and testing potential drugs. Now, they are being used in a surprising and unexpected way: for the production of snake venom. On January 23 in the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 23, 2020
0
675
Africa is a tough place. It always has been. Especially if you have to fend off gigantic predators like sabre-toothed carnivores in order to survive. And, when you're a small, dog-sized pre-mammalian reptile, sometimes the ...
Archaeology
Feb 13, 2017
1
141
Technology that can map out the genes at work in a snake or lizard's mouth has, in many cases, changed the way scientists define an animal as venomous. If oral glands show expression of some of the 20 gene families associated ...
Evolution
Dec 8, 2014
0
0
A new study has provided the first comprehensive insight into how snake venom evolved into the sophisticated cocktail of different proteins it is today.
Plants & Animals
Dec 3, 2013
0
0
