Snakebite, wound inflicted by the teeth of a snake. The bite of a nonvenomous snake is rarely serious. Venomous snakes have fangs, hollow teeth through which poison is injected into a victim. ...

Gila monster, venomous lizard, Heloderma suspectum, found in the deserts of the SW United States and NW Mexico. It averages 18 in. (45 cm) in length, with a large head, stout body, thick tail ...

Sting, in zoology, organ found in bees, many wasps, some ants, and in scorpions and sting rays, used defensively as well as to kill or paralyze prey. In the bee and the wasp the venom is produ...

Water moccasin or cottonmouth, highly venomous snake, Ancistrodon piscivorus, of the swamps and bayous of the S United States. Like the closely related copperhead, it is a pit viper and has a ...

Noguchi, Hideyo, 1876–1928, Japanese bacteriologist, grad. Tokyo Medical College, 1897. He came to the United States c.1900 to work with Simon Flexner at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and in 1904 ...

Bushmaster, large venomous snake, Lachesis muta, of Central America and N South America. It is a member of the pit viper family, which also includes the rattlesnake. The largest New World snak...

Sea snake, name for any of the venomous marine snakes of the family Hydrophidae, found in tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. The sea snake's body is flattened laterally and its ...

Mamba, name for African snakes of the genus Dendroaspis, in the cobra family. Widely distributed throughout Africa except in the deserts, mambas have extremely toxic venom. When attacking they...

Solenodon, venomous insectivorous mammal, genus Solenodon, found in the West Indies. Related to moles, shrews, and hedgehogs, the solenodon resembles a rat with an elongated snout and coarse, ...

Alarcón, Pedro Antonio de, 1833–91, Spanish writer, politician, and diplomat. He wrote several novels, including El sombrero de tres picos (1874, tr. The Three-cornered Hat, 1891), on which Ma...