The builders of Stonehenge ate sweet treats including foraged fruit and nuts, English Heritage has revealed. Another earth shaking revelation for our times
Only one species of rattlesnake has neurotoxic venom, common in elapids, like cobras, coral snakes, and sea snakes. The Mojave rattlesnake of the desert near the tri state area of California, Nevada, and Arizona. Most viper venom is hemotoxic.
Oh, dear, poor you- you hit on one of my life passions: neurotoxin in rattlesnake venom. I hope you appreciate the restraint I am showing in not launching into an extended lecture on the subject. Mojave greens have neurotoxic-hemotoxic venom, At one time, we thought only the Mojave greens had this neurotoxic component, but now we know it's present in other rattlers as well. The midget faded rattlesnake (native to my beloved state) has an extremely high percentage of neurotoxins. (Do not lecture. Do not lecture. Resist, resist.)
"We know that midwinter and feasting were really important to the builders of Stonehenge," Greaney said in the statement. "We’re lucky to have evidence which tells us that they had access to nutritious fruit and nuts."
Go ahead. Lecture. I kinda knew that. Our local crotalus oreganus helleri have a nero toxic component as well. I was just trying to keep it simple.
You sure you want to open that door? Comrade! Keep it simple? Nay, nay, nay! The discovery of neurotoxin in rattlesnake venom is one of my favorite breakthroughs in herpetology. Consider the source, though: my background is rangeland ecology, so don't look for me to rattle (ahem) off complex biochemical explanations. You've got C. helleri? That must put you in southern California somewhere. The herpetologist at Steinberg Museum of Natural History in Hayes, Kansas says the species is well-named and that their particular specimen makes an attack on the keepers every chance it gets. If you are ever traveling through Kansas on I-70, I highly recommend the rattlesnake collection at the Steinberg. I got to go back in the storage room top see the spare rattlers. They had a xanthic prairie rattler, a ridge-nosed rattler, and (a personal favorite) a pink Grand Canyon rattler. They had several others on display that I'd never seen.
Even though the price of polyvinyl chloride has quadrupled since 2020, a band would have to amass 450,000 streams on Spotify to match the profit of 100 vinyl sales.
Never been attacked by a C. Helleri. In fact most run away before I can get a good picture. I've see three in the last six months. Have yet to see a roadrunner take one. BTW, I am nowhere near being a real herpetologist. I just like looking up the things I see on the trails. I have a cat that was bitten by, I suspect, a C. scutulatus when I was living in Southern Nevada. It was a dry bite and she survived.
I'm an amateur herp person, too, but have been studying rattlesnakes since I was a kid. As a graduate student, I signed up for a wildlife management class because it scheduled a field trip to the Mojave Desert and I wanted to see a Mojave green. Saw three, all in the same spot. Woo-hoo! Dropped the class immediately after the field trip. Sexing and identifying birds solely by their wings did me in. Opted for a different line of science- not many ways of making a living studying Crotalus species, though I have written some nice science articles about them. I'm working on one about wandering garter snakes right now. We had a pair of red-tailed hawks nest in the tree across the road from us this summer and they sure cut down on the bull snake population in the course of feeding babies.
Playing electronic dance music (EDM) could be just what you need to scare away those pesky mosquitoes in the summer. According to one 2019 study published in the journal Acta Topica, the Skrillex song "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" combines "very high and very low frequencies" as well as "excessive loudness and constantly escalating pitch" that discourages the yellow fever mosquito from biting victims and mating.