Target tracking during venom ‘spitting’ by cobras
نویسندگان
چکیده
منابع مشابه
Target tracking during venom 'spitting' by cobras.
Spitting cobras, which defend themselves by streaming venom towards the face and/or eyes of a predator, must be highly accurate because the venom they spit is only an effective deterrent if it lands on the predator's cornea. Several factors make this level of accuracy difficult to achieve; the target is moving, is frequently >1 m away from the snake and the venom stream is released in approxima...
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Multiple radiations of Asiatic and African cobras have independently evolved the ability to expel their venom as a pressurized horizontal stream, a behavior commonly referred to as spitting. Though the unique fang morphology of spitting cobras is well known, the functional bases of venom spitting have received little attention. The combined results of gross and microscopic morphology, high-spee...
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The cytotoxicity of the venom of 25 species of Old World elapid snake was tested and compared with the morphological and behavioural adaptations of hooding and spitting. We determined that, contrary to previous assumptions, the venoms of spitting species are not consistently more cytotoxic than those of closely related non-spitting species. While this correlation between spitting and non-spitti...
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ژورنال
عنوان ژورنال: Journal of Experimental Biology
سال: 2010
ISSN: 1477-9145,0022-0949
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.037135