eli5: Why do snakes have such potent venom when the prey they eat are normally small in comparison?

241 views

I’m from northern Australia and we have many snakes that can easily kill humans, cattle and other live stock. The power of these snakes venom seems overkill for what is required?

In: 139

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

G’day fellow upside down redditor, to answer your question, the “easily kill human” venom can in fact easily kill a human, but it takes time to kill said human, whereas when a snake is hunting a marsupial like like a rat or a quenda (Aussie small marsupial for all you seppos), it cant afford to bite the snake and inject its venom, only for the lil bastard to bolt away and die a few minutes late where the snake can’t find it. It need to incapacitate its prey in seconds if it wants to eat its dinner. So the lethal dose for a human is a INSTANT FATALITY dose for its lil prey

You are viewing 1 out of 9 answers, click here to view all answers.