INTRODUCTION Soldiers in field units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are susceptible to injury by various poisonous animals during training and operations. Bites and envenomations by animals such as snakes, scorpions, and spiders can be painful and debilitating, and at times life-threatening. We have examined the extent of exposure of IDF soldiers to snake and arthropod bites and the morbidi...

There are many vanishing cultures that possess a wealth of knowledge on the medicinal utility of plants. The Malasars of Dravidian Tamils are an indigenous society occupying the forests of the Western Ghats, South India. They are known to be exceptional healers and keepers of traditional aboriginal knowledge (TAK) of the flora in the Velliangiri holy hills. In fact, their expertise is well know...

General concepts of larval fish ecology in temperate oceans predominantly associate dispersal and survival to exogenous mechanisms such as passive drift along ocean currents. However, for tropical reef fish larvae and species in inland freshwater systems behavioural aspects of habitat selection are evidently important components of dispersal. This study is focused on larval Atlantic herring (Cl...

The effects of microcystins on Daphnia galeata, a typical filter-feeding grazer in eutrophic lakes, were investigated. To do this, the microcystin-producing wild-type strain Microcystis aeruginosa PCC7806 was compared with a mcy- PCC7806 mutant, which could not synthesize any variant of microcystin due to mutation of a microcystin synthetase gene. The wild-type strain was found to be poisonous ...

In the framework of the collection and identification of agaric fungi of Iran, three species of the genus Lepiota, viz. Lepiota brunneoincarnata, L. echinella and L. subincarnata are reported as new records for mycobiota of Iran. Two species, L. brunneoincarnata and L. subincarnata are deadly poisonous taxa. Up to now, two species of Amanita, A. phalloides and A. verna, and one from Galerina, G...

This paper is based on the author's experience while working in Israel, Egypt and Cyprus and therefore covers only these areas. From the point of view of its snake fauna, the eastern Mediterranean may be divided geographically into two parts, a northern and a southern area. The northern area, which extends north from the latitude of Jerusalem to include the southern shores of Asia Minor,: the L...