Dear all,
The other day I had a minor discussion with some fellow field herpers about the presumed toxicity of Hemorrhois nummifer. I thought this species is venomous, they thought it isn’t. After scrutinizing my field guides and the internet I couldn’t find much about it, but most of the stuff I found stated that H. nummifer is harmless and/or non-venomous... I almost started doubting myself, until I came across a description of some bite incidents caused by the related Hemorrhois ravergieri. The symptoms seemed pretty nasty, maybe not life-threatening, but still… I think that H. nummifer is related closely enough to say that they are capable of inflicting the same kind of bites, but is there any evidence around supporting this?
If so, it might be good to know, since I sense that this is not really common knowledge, and obviously there are a lot of people in the field who don’t know or are not entirely sure about it (including me) and treat this species as a non-venomous snake (not including me)…
Hopefully some of you know more about this and want to share it?! And maybe not only about H. nummifer, but also about other “low profile” venomous snake species (e.g. Platyceps najadum).
Cheers! Maarten
PS Since the author of the aforementioned H. ravergieri description is the same person as the webmaster of this great forum, I thought I might post it here