[HN Gopher] Sea snakes are washing up on New Zealand's shores
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Sea snakes are washing up on New Zealand's shores
Author : NotSwift
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-08-15 19:08 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| the-dude wrote:
| I was not disappointed to find this too can be blamed on global
| warming.
| malshe wrote:
| The article mentions a few times that "there are no snakes in New
| Zealand." This reminded me of the short story titled "There are
| no snakes in Ireland" by Frederick Forsyth in his book No
| Comebacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Comebacks
| teslaberry wrote:
| i love how every article relating to natural phenomena in modern
| print MUST attribute a scenario 'possibly' to global warming.
| always. this is how you know you're being primed. "sea
| snakes.....could be global warming, you know the warming is
| making the snakes arrive....could be"
|
| god was always part of the discussion in religious times.
| N00bN00b wrote:
| They are trying to evolve and become land snakes.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| Might be nit picking but aren't snakes venomous not poisonous as
| stated in the article?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| Yes; the article itself does refer to them as venomous but
| people are quoted as saying poisonous, though maybe the
| article's use of 'venomous' is a correction that happened after
| your comment.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| They can be both. I wouldn't recommend eating any venomous
| animal as their venom may poison you. The venom may be
| digestible, but get a tiny scratch from one of those fangs and
| you will not be happy.
| kens wrote:
| I happen to have an Oxford English Dictionary next to me so I
| took a look. Definition 1 for poisonous is "Containing or of
| the nature of poison; having the quality of property of poison;
| venomous".
|
| 1665 ... poisonous viper ...
| salzig wrote:
| Australia is dangerous, even those snakes realise that.
| pmkiwi wrote:
| If they go through MIQ first, all good!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I love how Australia has all the nature that wants to kill you
| and apparently New Zealand has none of it.
| akiselev wrote:
| And the one venomous migrant species - it happens often enough
| to be legally protected in NZ since they came on their own - is
| curious, not aggressive, and doesn't have fangs long enough to
| be much of a threat to humans. Quite charming.
| mikeywazowski wrote:
| I presume you're referring to the Katipo.
|
| Note that white-tails and redbacks have also migrated to NZ
| from Australia.
|
| Also, from Wikipedia: "A katipo bite produces the toxic
| syndrome latrodectism; symptoms include extreme pain and,
| potentially, hypertension, seizure, or coma." Not exactly
| what I'd call charming.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| The only thing you need to really watch out for are what's
| known colloquially as the Drop Bear. Also best not to aggravate
| a brown snake.
| keithnz wrote:
| in fact, our native animals (mostly birds) are really really
| unprepared for hostile species which is why they are getting
| decimated by introduced pests like possums, rats, ferrets. They
| evolved traits like being "smelly" so that they can find each
| other easily.... which, for a predator is like opening a fast
| food shop with neon flashing lights.
| BrissyCoder wrote:
| The only good snake is a dead snake.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Mmm I had a boss on one job who used to scoop see snakes up out
| of the water by their tail and bring them up on deck for the rest
| of us youngins to see. Wild creatures. Their colours are amazing.
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