• Question: have u been biten

    Asked by coldvenom555 to Cassie, Greg, Karen, Sofia, Tommy on 18 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Karen Bacon

      Karen Bacon answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      Yes many times – I spent a lot of time as an undergrad working with different invertebrates and have been bitten by various fish and crabs. That’s one of the nice things about working with plants, they very seldom bite you – though I have also been bitten by Venus flytraps, though that was my own fault as I put my finger in the trap to see what would happen 🙂

    • Photo: Cassandra Raby

      Cassandra Raby answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      Yes – but luckily by nothing too dangerous.

      When I catch birds sometimes they like to giev me quite a nip to tell me they are not happy that I’m holding them!

      But when I’m in Africa I haven’t been bitten yet, and I’m very glad about that! Baboons have huge teeth, so they could kill me. The snakes are very venomous, so they could kill me. The leopard… well that obviously could kill me.

      So I’m pretty glad I haven’t been bitten by much!

    • Photo: Sofia Franco

      Sofia Franco answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      Loads of times 😉 bugs and fish specially (and a few cats and dogs playing)! Love it when are those hundreds of little fish in the low river that just come to have a little bit of your legs 😉 looks a bit like those fish pedicures you can now get everywhere!

    • Photo: Thomas Doherty-Bone

      Thomas Doherty-Bone answered on 19 Nov 2013:

      Its best to avoid being bitten or harmed by the creatures one works with.

      I have never been bitten by a frog (some species do scratch using an X-Men wolverine style retractable bone-claw), or a crab/crayfish (pinch instead) and while I have worked with baboons many years ago I have succeeded in not being bitten (was struck by one on the head though). Stung by plenty of things.

      I have been bitten by a few snakes however, all were harmless. The exception was a Burrowing Asp last year, which got my finger. These are generally not fatal (small delivery of poison, the more bites, the more likely you will die). Still very painful, with a difficult first night’s sleep and a week before I could actually make a fist with my hand. Something to be avoided, though I can say I have been working with venemous snakes for 9 years previous to that and that was my first envenomation, so it is inevitable but would like to keep that as the only time too.

      I’ve been bitten by a few dogs, but never badly, by cats, rats….think thats it. Small lizards (to show to local African villagers that chamaeleons are not poisionous….though maybe I shouldn’t have run round screaming and pretented to be dead). Glad I’ve never been bitten by a parrot 😉

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