Would a poisonous snake die if it bit itself?
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This Moment of Um is brought to you by the Brains On podcast. I'm Mark Sanchez. We love hearing your questions and we love finding the answers too. Check out this one. Hi, my name is Carly and I'm from Woodstock, Georgia. And my question is, would a poisonous snake die if it bit itself? Yikes! That's kind of scary. I've bitten my own tongue a couple of times and it definitely hurts. But I wasn't worried about poisoning myself.

What do you think? Could a snake's own venom be dangerous to the snake itself? Well, we found out. My name is Lori Ahrens. I'm a reptile keeper here at the San Diego Zoo. I primarily take care of crocodiles, large snakes, and some cool monitor lizards, but working with all the reptiles here at the zoo.

It's kind of a tough question to answer. There is a bit of yes and a whole lot of no. So if a snake bites itself, they do have fangs that can cause some damage. So if they happen to bite themselves in an important organ or a very sensitive area, they could make enough damage that they could die. But generally speaking, it's not from venom. They tend to have an immunity to their own venom. It's made more specifically for capturing and eating prey.

or to protect themselves from predators that are trying to get a hold of them. There are some snakes out there that do in fact have venom, but they don't use it for eating. So things like king cobras will have really strong jaws that they use to capture their prey as opposed to envenomating.

I have myself seen venomous snakes that have bitten themselves, but they don't show any signs of envenomation or any issues afterwards. And most of the time when we have seen snakes bite themselves, it's on accident. They're defending themselves for some reason and they're biting at whatever is nearby and that could potentially be themselves. Phew, good to know. Maybe poisonous snakes are just as scared of themselves as we are.

I'm glad they aren't in danger of getting self-poisoned. And I'm going to keep my distance, too, just to be sure. If you have questions you'd like us to answer on Moment of Um, head to brainson.org slash contact and send them to us. And while you're there, you can listen to whole episodes of the Brains On podcast, including lots of answers to questions from listeners like you.

Oh, and you. And you over there. Yeah, and you in the car. And I think you walking to the bus stop. Yeah, all of you. I know you have a question. Send it in. Brainson.org slash contact. Moment of Um is produced by Tara Anderson, Molly Bloom, Rosie DuPont, Ruby Guthrie, Mark Sanchez, Catherine Sundquist, Sandon Totten, and Manika Wilhelm. We had production help from Sarah McRae and engineering help from Eric Romani and Alex Simpson. Our executive producer is Beth Berlman.

The executives in charge of APM Studios are Lily Kim, Alex Schaffert, and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Lori Ahrens, Roland Chang, Steve Aretti, Jennifer Quinlan, and Nicole Sharp. Find out more about our show at momentofum.org. Until next time. Is there a teen in your life who needs a little extra help learning how to manage their finances?

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