ROFL - you and me both Will. Probably the man who can enlighten us is Wolfgang Wüster who gave a talk about this at an FBH Conference a few years back. He is a member of the forum, and occasionally posts so .............

Yooohoo ................Wolfgang

Chris 

Hi Gemma

I am trying desperately to find the relevant paper, but some research was carried out a (very) few years back which showed that most non-boid snakes had venom glands and produced venom. Many of them, of course, like the Grass Snake lack an effective means of delivery.

If memory serves me correctly, Tony Phelps had a reasonably bad experience with a Smooth Snake once - I think mainly because they chew! If he is reading perhaps he will confirm - or tell me I'm hallucinating!

Chris

worth reading just for the 'whole in one' pun, I'd say..

It is obviously "lets blame amphibians and reptiles" weekend on the BBC website when I spotted a link on the front page of their news website to a feature posted today with the title of "Boars Ticks and adders - The hidden dangers of a walk in the English countryside"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27588210

The good news is that despite the headline they have actually picked out the most common deadly animal that people encounter in the countryside and which aren't "hidden" at all but in plain sight - cattle. They have a table showing that in the ten years from 2001 to 2011 the HSE recorded 32 deaths and 439 major injuries. We've had one death and one serious injury to walkers near me this year from cattle.
The information about adders isn't too wildly inaccurate except talking about dogs they say "However, a number of dog deaths have been attributed to adder bites, including a possible case in Nottinghamshire earlier this year."
This is the non-existent adder in non adder habitat where the owner was told it "might" be an adder bite by the vet and it was then broadcast to all and sundry as an adder bite, whilst the vet backtracked when approached by the BBC to say "Therefore it is inconclusive. We don't think it would be wise to presume it was definitely an adder"

Just come across this news item published today on the BBC News website

Ilkeston railway station: Plans delayed by great crested newts

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-28488008

As usual the GCN are getting the blame for a 4 month delay and the Councillor is quoted as saying "We've had a number of set-backs which were beyond our control and couldn't be foreseen".

Well excuse me whilst I explode -  this was completely foreseeable. The new road (on the left in the artists impression of the site) was built just a few years ago and construction started in the winter of 2006 and came to a halt in spring 2007 due to their finding great crested newts on site in ponds and ditches on both sides of the railway. Although there was a mitigation scheme to move the GCN to new ponds some 200m away, we all know that they never catch all the newts. Now 7 years later, although most of the original ponds have gone and a section of the rail-side ditch has been culverted, they have found GCN back there using the remaining sections of ditch and pond. 

What a completely unforseeable surprise.