Book VII · The Unclaimed Entry 54 of 55
Boomslang — unclaimed
Afrikaans for “tree snake”. Killed the herpetologist who insisted it could not.
For decades the boomslang was considered harmless because its fangs sit at the back of the mouth. In 1957 that assumption killed one of the most respected herpetologists in the world, who spent his final hours writing down what was happening to him.
- Book
- Book VII — The Unclaimed
- Marque
- Unclaimed
- Model
- Boomslang
- Years
- Available immediately
- Origin
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Namesake
- Boomslang
- Binomial
- Dispholidus typus
Sigil generated from the entry's own name. Every coil, hue and scale in this plate is a function of the string “vacancy-boomslang”, and of nothing else.
The boomslang is a slender, green, enormous-eyed arboreal colubrid, and for a long time the consensus held that rear-fanged snakes of its kind could not deliver a serious envenomation to a human.
In 1957 Karl Patterson Schmidt, a leading American herpetologist, was bitten on the thumb by a juvenile specimen. Believing the dose insufficient to be dangerous, he went home. He then kept a detailed clinical record of his own symptoms — hour by hour, precisely, in the voice of a scientist observing a specimen — until he died the following day.
The Ophidiary records this without any of the flippancy that governs the rest of this book. Those notes changed the medical understanding of haemotoxic envenomation from rear-fanged snakes, and they were written by a man who understood exactly what was happening and chose to document it anyway. It is one of the most serious things in the entire literature of this subject.
The venom is haemotoxic: it disables the blood’s ability to clot, comprehensively, and the failure is systemic. Symptoms are often delayed by many hours, which is precisely why the danger was underestimated for so long.
The name is Afrikaans — boom, tree; slang, snake — and it is one of the most attractive words in the whole of herpetology. It is unclaimed by any manufacturer, and the Ophidiary would not object if it stayed that way.
He knew what it was. He wrote down the hours as they came. That is not bravery. That is a person finishing the sentence they had spent a whole life starting.
Questions people actually ask
Is the boomslang dangerous?
Yes. Despite rear-positioned fangs and a docile disposition, its haemotoxic venom prevents blood clotting and can be fatal. Symptoms are often delayed by many hours, which historically led to the danger being badly underestimated.
Provenance of claims
This is a satire with a research habit. Every load-bearing statement above is listed here and labelled, so you can tell which sentences would survive a librarian.
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Documented
Karl Patterson Schmidt died in 1957 from a boomslang bite and documented his own symptoms until shortly before his death.
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Documented
Boomslang venom is haemotoxic and its effects are often significantly delayed.
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Documented
Boomslang is Afrikaans for “tree snake”.