REAR-FANGED BOOMSLANG
About 24 hours after being bitten on the thumb by a juvenile boomslang in 1957, herpetologist Karl Patterson Schmidt died from internal bleeding from his eyes, lungs, kidneys, heart and brain. Like many others in the field at the time, Schmidt believed that rear-fanged snakes like the boomslang (Dispholidus typus) couldn’t produce a venom dose big enough to be fatal to humans. But he was dead wrong.
The boomslang, which can be found throughout Africa but lives primarily in Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, is one of the most venomous of the so-called rearfanged snakes. Such snakes can fold their fangs back into their mouths when not in use. As with other deadly snakes, this one has hemotoxic venom that causes victims to bleed out internally and externally.