Changes to our understanding of venomous snake systematics, and the consequent changes in the nomenclature of these animals, have traditionally been a great source of confusion among biomedical researchers. This paper aims to facilitate access to the taxonomic literature by presenting a synopsis of the changes in venomous snake systematics that have taken place recently (primarily since 1992), ...

The importance of predation as a mortality factor in adult mosquitoes has received only limited attention in the scientific literature. Despite the lack of consensus among researchers as to whether bats are important predators of mosquitoes, there have been no attempts to directly document the effect of bats on mosquito populations or behavior. We conducted an enclosure experiment to test the h...

An amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) assay was performed on individuals representing discrete haplotypes from two genetically distinct mtDNA lineages of the bamboo viper, Trimeresurus stejnegeri (Schmidt), within Taiwan. AFLP (525 polymorphic markers from five primer pairs) and mtDNA genetic distances were highly correlated and an analysis of molecular variance, and a Bayesian appro...

Despite much effort towards resolving the molecular phylogenetic tree for pitvipers, some aspects remain unresolved. In particular, the sister group of the diverse New World radiation has remained impossible to identify with any certainty. In this study, which for the first time includes nuclear intron data from all major groups of Asian pitvipers as well as representatives of the New World rad...

The spin-labeled cardiolipin 1-(3-sn-phosphatidyl)-3-[1-acyl-2-(16-doxylstearoyl)glycero(3)phosphol]-sn-glycerol has been prepared. The stereoselective synthesis makes use of the monolysocardiolipin 1-(3-sn-phosphatidyl)-3-[1-acyl-2-lyso-sn-glycero(3)phospho]-sn-glycerol, available from the stereospecific hydrolysis of cardiolipin by phospholipase A2 (phosphatide 2-acylhydrolase, EC 3.1.1.4) of...

The major viperid snakes present in Taiwan today are: Daboia russelli siamensis, Deinagkistrodon acutus, Protobothrops mucrosquamatus, Trimeresurus stejnegeri, Ovophis monticola and Ovophis gracilis. As suggested by the species trees deduced from mtDNA sequences of the family Viperidae, these species apparently belong to five different genera. Molecular cloning, N-terminal sequencing, and mass ...

Hemorrhage is a common occurrence in a victim bitten by crotalid and viperid snakes, and hemorrhagic components in these various venoms have been isolated and characterized. Previously, we have shown that a low molecular weight hemorrhagic protein (HR2a, 202 amino acid residues) isolated from the venom of Trimeresurus flavoviridis is a member of a new subfamily of metalloproteinases. We now rep...