question about Hybrids in the wild?!?!?

[MastersHaven]

Have you ever heard of a garter x rattlesnake cross????

A friend of a friend was telling me today that a couple weeks ago they found a snake in their house... the snake spat on her, it immediately began burning so they captured the snake (I'm assuming dead) and rushed her and the snake to the hospital. she showed me where the "snake spit" had caused a very bad-swelled up rash...

apparently the people at the hospital told them that this snake was a garter - rattlesnake hybrid??? I asked her what they did with the snake she told me that a man from the forestry service came and disposed of it... I would have been interested in seeing this specimen...

what are the chances of this type of hybrid???

[Joejr14]

Have you ever heard of a garter x rattlesnake cross????

A friend of a friend was telling me today that a couple weeks ago they found a snake in their house... the snake spat on her, it immediately began burning so they captured the snake (I'm assuming dead) and rushed her and the snake to the hospital. she showed me where the "snake spit" had caused a very bad-swelled up rash...

apparently the people at the hospital told them that this snake was a garter - rattlesnake hybrid??? I asked her what they did with the snake she told me that a man from the forestry service came and disposed of it... I would have been interested in seeing this specimen...

what are the chances of this type of hybrid???

I'd say the chances are 1 in about 10 million. And, this story reaks of BS. No north american snakes 'spit' venom. Something is very wrong with this story. Garter snake bites can sometimes cause a bit of a reaction, if I remember correctly, but this 'spating' thing is bothersome.

[TrpnBils]

I smell BS as well...especially since here in PA we had a scare among the non-herp people a few years back with a similar story.

http://sites.state.pa.us/Fish/faqampr.htm#4

Although it doesn't completely work the same since both snakes are live-bearing, I'd still bet that it's not possible. And did you hear the one about the human/chimp hybrid? http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa022800a.htm
Yeah, that was BS too...

[MastersHaven]

BS was my initial thoughts also, but I wasn't going to say it to this ladies face because she was clearly upset about the whole ordeal...

I just told her that I had never heard of such a thing and didn't think that it was possible... and that I would have liked to have seen the snake....

she proceded to tell me that the snake was about 2 1/2 to 3 foot long and a dark grey to brownish-green color w/ diamond/checkered like markings but no rattles. she said that it made some kind of humming noise with it's tail... I took that as a normal tail rattle (like with a corn).

OHHHHH and the one thing that struck me kind of funny with her story was that she said they gave her an anti'venom shot and sent her home....

I seriously don't see them giving her something as serious as anti-venom and then letting her go home???? but she did have a bruise on her arm (shoulder) that looked like she had had a shot of some kind ....

Is anti venom given subQ or IM ??? or is it in IV form?
I was thinking it was in IV form, but I have never really had any dealings with it so I wasn't certain...


a very strange situation... one that I hate to see happen because it's things like that that give people the wrong idea about all snakes...

It really breaks my heart!

[hana]

as far as I know anti-venom is given through an IV drip. so, there's no just giving a 'shot'. and, I doubt they would have given it straight off and not watch her for a little while first if it looked questionable. but, what do I know, I just do hair.. :rolleyes: heh




hana

[TrpnBils]

hana's right.. it's given through IV drip, and there's no way they could've given it to her without knowing the species of snake they're supposedly treating for. Even among rattlesnakes, the antivenom is different depending on the species.

I meant to include this before, but I forgot. Twice in the past two summers, I've come across garters that did something really weird. They actually flattened their head like a cobra (or hognose) would. I talked to the other reptile guy at work about it, and he said he's only heard of that before, but never seen it himself. He got ahold of a friend of his that wrote a paper on garter snake defenses and apparently it's not real common. Very strange looking though, and the bites burn like hell, so if you have a good imagination, I would imagine such a display and a bite could play tricks on your mind....lol

[MastersHaven]

maybe that is what happened with this lady ... and maybe it did actually bitw her and she was just so pannicked that she didn't realize it until after tha fact...

I just dont understand why the folks at the hospital would bring it upon themselves to tell her that it was some type of hybrid... JERKS!

maybe the shot they gave her was some kind of nerve meds to sadate her or calm her down... or something like an epinephrin like with bee's???

I dont know... It all just really angers me because this lady was one that tolerated snakes before (she didn't like them but she tolerated them) but now she says she will kill everyone she sees...

I dont even know what to say to her to change her mind... what is my word against a doctors' or a forestry officer for that matter...

I kind of laughed it off and made the comment that if she didn't like snakes she might not wanna come visit me.... LOL

oh well... thanks for the input guys...

[MastersHaven]

Dang... I just read over that last post and boy look at all of the mis-spellings and typos!

That's me .... Ms. Typo Queen...

LOL

[hana]

perhaps it was a placebo to ease her mind? ;)

[MastersHaven]

:D sounds like a good explanation to me...

:grin01:

[BeckyG]

Maybe the shot they gave her was some kind of nerve meds to sedate her or calm her down... or something like an epinephrin like with bees???



Last time my son got stung by a bee, he had 6 shots. Five were given through an IV, and one was given in his shoulder. Only one was epinephrin, but it was the one he got in the shoulder. It didn't leave a bruise, though.

The whole story sounds fishy to me. Sort of like she made the whole thing up just to get attention.

[MastersHaven]

well, I guess that is always a possibility but her arm really does look bad where
it supposedly *spat* on her (is spat even a word? lol) ...

and her b'friend was pretty much telling the same thing,
but I guess they both would tell about the same story...

I bet thats what the shot in her should was...
I have no clue where she got the idea of anti venom though....
maybe whatever they gave her was stronger than what they thought.....

LOL

[medic2]

was the "anti venom" shot in the arm possibly a Tetanus vaccine? Everybody that goes into the ER without up to date Tetanus vaccine gets one.

[Sasheena]

Sounds to me like she was bitten by some snake but didn't see it happen, and as can happen (it does with me every time) she had a mild allergic reaction to the saliva of the snake. So they pick up the snake after killing it and rush to the hospital, convinced it's something venemous.

The first person to see the snake, (a nurse, the reception desk, a bystander) says: "Jeeze, I used to have garter snakes, and this looks kind of like one of those, but if it rattled it's tail, that's what rattlesnakes do, maybe it's some sort of cross?" (thus the explanation of it being a hybrid gets fixed firmly in her mind, and any other explanation of "we're not sure what it is but it doesn't look venemous to us" goes right over her head)

The doctors see a histamine response on her arm and give her an antihistamine shot. Some people react to the inert ingredients in shots and end up getting a reaction to that. (I react to shots the same as colubrid snake bites, massive swelling, redness, itching).

I'm guessing that when she said "Don't you think I need some antivenon or something?" she was told "This shot will take care of the problem".

When she asked about the snake corpse she brought in, she was probably told that the proper authorities had been alerted and would come and take it away. (Being the animal control people).

These are a lot of suppositions, but sometimes it seems like the only way to counteract stories of such a high magnitude of idiocy results in the need to figure out what happened and how it got interpreted differently. She'll go to her grave believing she was attacked by a rattlesnake/garter hybrid.

(reminds me of when my husband was coaching. One of his swimmers didn't want to swim because her sister was due to have a baby three weeks later and she wanted to be home in case her sister needed to go into labor. When he told her she needed to choose whether she wanted to be on the team or home with her sister, she said to him "so you're just telling me to tell my family to go F themselves?" to which he didn't reply. By the end of the day she was convinced he HAD told her to tell her family to go F themselves.)

[MastersHaven]

LOL.... yes, your suppositions seem to be the closest thing to logic I can come of the whole situation also! that is pretty much what I have tried to explain to her... I think I have her convinced that it wasn't a hybrid and hopefully she's not going on any mass-snake murdering sprees...

Hopefully!!!