TEN Interesting Facts About Venomous Snakes in Malaysia

That You May Not Know

While researching for facts for a First aid book manuscript by my colleauges and I, I have
stumbled upon many interesting facts about venomous snake bites in Malaysia. I have
compiled them and placed them in this blog post. Free reference resources that I have used
are found at the end of this blog post.

1. Most snakes in Malaysia are harmless to human

17 out of the 105 strictly land snakes are venomous
Even bites of venomous snakes are not life threatening in humans unless
sufficient venom is injected at the time of bite. In fact, most are dry bites. The
problem, however, is the accurate identification by the witnesses. Because we
are not sure whether the snake is venomous or not, coupled with the fact that
there is no simple physical features criteria to differentiate venomous from
non-venomous snakes, the victim should be treated with vigilant medical care
for the benefit of doubt.

2. All sea snakes in Malaysia are venomous, they are powerful and
dangerous to human.
All 14 species of fresh water snakes are harmless but all 22 species of sea
snakes are venomous

Most sea snakes live along shallow coastal water and therefore, fishermen is
the group of people most at risk to be bitten by sea snake.
 Enhydrina schistosa

Enhydrina schistosa is the most common and dangerous sea snakes along the
coast and in river mouths of Peninsular Malaysia. This may surprise some
people, but the venom of this snake is rated four to eight times as toxic as
cobra venom.

3. Unfortunately, sea snake bites have little or no pain, and no edema

(or only with a mild local reaction) at the site of bite. (On the contrary, fish
stings are painful).

4. According to many studies, most (about 2/3rd) of the snake bites

in Malaysia are due to the Malaysian pit viper bites.
And about 75% of these cases are confined to the northern states of Perlis,
Kedah and Penang.
Snake bites are twice as common in males as in females, and it commonly
affects the age group of 10 - 19 years old.

5. A peculiar characteristic of the Malayan pit viper is that it will

not easily move away, but rather will stay on at the same spot
despite several hours after the attack, and therefore, it can be easily
found!!
This earn the Malayan pit viper the Malay name "ULAR KAPAK BODOH"
(translated as "the dumb pit viper") [click here to read the article "The
Medically Important Poisonous Snakes In Malaysia" by Prof Tan Nget Hong]

Triangular head of the Malayan pit viper

6. Contrary to what many people believe, the King Cobra is actually

not an aggressive snake. In fact, it keeps out of people's way.
It only attack when provoked, or accidentally stepped on. And if cornered, the
king cobra can be extremely dangerous because of the large amount of venom
it is capable of delivering in a bite.
7. On the other hand, the Malayan pit viper, although a "dumb" snake,
it is a bad tempered snake, quick to strike if disturbed.

8. One should not assume that bites from the young, small or baby
snakes are less harmful.
Quite the contrary! According to the WHO management guidelines for snake
bites in South East Asia region (see link below for free download of this
excellent manual), although large snakes tend to inject more venom than
smaller specimens of the same species, the venom of smaller, younger vipers
may be richer in some dangerous components, such as those affecting
haemostasis. Therefore, bites by small snakes should not be ignored or
dismissed. They should be taken just as seriously as bites by large snakes of
the same species.

In fact, there is a legend that says that the young snakes have not yet learned
how to control the amount of venom they inject. They are therefore more
dangerous than adult snakes, which will restrict the amount of venom that
accompanies a bite. It’s repeated so often that it’s become a sort of mantra
among laypeople and biologists alike!

Whether this legend is true or not is beyond the scope of this medically
focused post as this is more of a herpetology question (for a more extensive
discussion of this questionable nature of baby snake, click here for this blog
post). But suffice to summarily say here (to borrow the argument from that
blog post), that for this legend to be true, the follow four assumptions must
also be answered:

1. this means that snakes are able to control the amount of venom they
inject?
2. this means that there is some disadvantage to a snake when it injects all
of its venom in every bite? (otherwise why not inject all of their venom
all of the time?)
3. and as a result, as the snake mature, the snake learns of the
disadvantages of injecting all venoms and therefore, change its
behavior?
4. a full envenomation from a young snake maybe more dangerous than a
partial envenomation from an adult snake?

9. There is no simple rule to differentiate a venomous snake from a

non-venomous snake although certain features are notoriously seen in
venomous snakes like a spreading hood in cobra, a triangular head and Loreal
pits between the eyes and the nostril of a pit viper, the pair of sharp fangs as
well as the more elliptical eyes as compared to the rounded eyes of non
venomous snakes. Nevertheless, some harmless snakes have evolved to look
almost identical to venomous ones.
 The pair of fangs, spreading hood and
elliptical eyes of a king cobra
 The loreal pits colored red - an infrared sensor organ

10. Do not handle a dead snake as reflex envenomation by the decapitated

head of the snake can still occurs up to several hours after its death!! In a
website, it is quoted that reflex envenomation causes up to 3% of snake bites.

One of the important aspects that I did not include the post is the
different types of toxins produced by the different venomous snakes.

The venomous snakes in Malaysia are basically three groups: the

elapidae (which includes cobra or naja and the kraits), the viperidae
(the vipers) and the sea snakes. Although the toxins in the venoms are a
mixture of many things, the Elapidae produces venom that is
predominantly NEUROTOXIN (causes paralysis including resp muscle
paralysis), the Viperidae produces venom that is predominantly
HEMOTOXIN (causes bleeding, coagulopathy) and the sea snakes
produce venom that is predominantly MYOTOXIN plus neurotoxin. I
usually memorize them like this: EN (Elapidae = neurotoxin), VH
(Viperidae = hemotoxin), SM (sea snakes = myotoxin).

So, I suppose the person in the Discovery Channel program who got
bitten in the sea had gangrenous area because of the MYOTOXIN
causing myonecrosis, which can result in rhamdomyolysis, renal
failure, etc.

In one of the articles, it is also mentioned that sea snake bite can also
cause sleepiness, where the victim went to sleep, deteriorated into a
comatose state, not waking up, and die. I am not sure exactly how to
explain that sleepiness.