Tag: snakes

Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes

Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes

Snake traps, snake-sniffing dogs and snake-hunting inspectors have all helped control the population, but the snakes have proved especially hardy and now infest the entire island. Guam is home to an estimated 2 million of the reptiles, which in some areas reach a density of 13,000 per square mile — more concentrated than even in the Amazonian rainforests, the government says.

But brown tree snakes have an Achilles’ heel: Tylenol.

For some reason, the snakes are almost uniquely sensitive to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the ubiquitous over-the-counter painkiller. If you can get a tree snake to eat just 80 milligrams, you can kill it. That’s only about one-sixth of a standard pill — pigs, dogs and other similarly sized animals would have to eat about 500 of them to get into any trouble.

This is What Snake Venom Does to Blood!

I’ve seen numerous TV programs and documentaries about snakes.  But none of them has been this crystal clear.  Here is a full understanding of how screwed you are if the snakes bites you, in just over a minute.  Just imagine your blood turning into this jelly while inside your veins! How much heart work would be needed to push it through, and how useful that would be to your muscles, internal organs, and the rest?

Via The Laomedon!

The Holy Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats

By following comments at Chris’ blog, I came across the fascinating story that I haven’t heard before – the story of The Holy Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats.

The Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats is regarded as a sacred cat haven in Cyprus, as it’s name has been linked to felines for almost 2,000 years.

The original monastery was built in 327 AD, by Kalokeros, the first Byzantine governor of Cyprus, and patronised by Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. At that time, a terrible drought affected the whole of Cypus, and the entire island was overrun with poisonous snakes which made building the monastery a dangerous affair. Many of the inhabitants left their homes and moved off the island, for fear of the snakes, but Saint Helena came up with a solution to the plague – she ordered 1,000 cats to be shipped in from Egypt and Palestine to fight the reptiles.

In the following years, the cats did their duty, hunting and killing most of the snakes in the Akrotiri Peninsula, which soon came to be known as the “Cat Peninsula”.