Is Eating Venomous Sea Snakes a Bad Thing?

Venomous snakes are species of the suborder Serpentes that are capable of producing venom, which is used primarily for immobilizing prey and defense mostly via mechanical injection by fangs. Common venomous snakes include the families Elapidae, Viperidae, Atractaspididae, and some of the Colubridae. The toxicity of them is mainly indicated by murine LD50, while multifarious factors are considered to judge their potential danger to humans.The evolutionary history of venomous snakes can be traced back to as far as 25 million years ago.[1] Snake venom is actually modified saliva used for prey immobilization and self-defense and is usually delivered through highly specialized teeth, hollow fangs, directly into the bloodstream or tissue of the target. Evidence has recently been presented for the Toxicofera hypothesis, but venom was present (in small amounts) in the ancestors of all snakes (as well as several lizard families) as 'toxic saliva' and evolved to extremes in those snake families normally classified as venomous by parallel evolution. The Toxicofera hypothesis further implies that 'nonvenomous' snake lineages have either lost the ability to produce venom (but may still have lingering venom pseudogenes), or actually do produce venom in small quantities, likely sufficient enough to help capture small prey but causing no harm to humans when bitten.LD50, mostly on rodents, is a common indicator of snakes' toxicity whose level is higher with a smaller resultant value. There have been numerous studies on snake venom with a variability of potency estimates.[3] There are four methods in which the LD50 test is conducted, which are injections to subcutis (SC), vein (IV), muscle (IM or IC), and peritoneum (IP). The former (SC) is most applicable to actual bites as only vipers with large fangs, such as large Bitis, Bothrops or Crotalus specimens, would be able to deliver a bite that is truly intramuscular, and snakebites rarely cause IV envenomation. Testing using dry venom mixed with 0.1% bovine serum albumin in saline, gives more consistent results than just saline alone. Belcher's sea snake (Hydrophis belcheri), which many times is mistakenly called the hook-nosed sea snake (Enhydrina schistosa), has been erroneously popularized as the most venomous snake in the world, due to Ernst and Zug's published book "Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book" from 1996. Prominent venom expert Associate Professor Bryan Grieg Fry has clarified the error: "The hook nosed myth was due to a fundamental error in a book called 'Snakes in question'. In there, all the toxicity testing results were lumped in together, regardless of the mode of testing (e.g. subcutaneous vs. intramuscular vs intravenous vs intraperitoneal). As the mode can influence the relative number, venoms can only be compared within a mode. Otherwise, its apples and rocks.".[4] Belcher's sea snake's actual LD50 (recorded only intramuscularly) is 0.24 mg/kg[5] and 0.155 mg/kg,.[6] Studies on mice[7][8][9] and human cardiac cell culture[4][10][11] shows that venom of the inland taipan, drop by drop, is the most toxic among all snakes.