![]() In this venom-fighting menagerie, woodrats are an exception of sorts. ![]() (Instead of antivenin blood, mongooses possess mutations on their very cells that block snake neurotoxins like a wad of gum in a keyhole.) Egyptian mongooses may be even more venom-indifferent than opossums, but alas, their protections don’t seem to be transferable. Some scientists even believe the lowly opossum, which wields a venom-neutralizing peptide in its blood, may hold the key to developing a universal antivenom. ![]() In the mammalian realm, hedgehogs, skunks, ground squirrels, and pigs have shown resistance to venom. In fact, numerous critters have shown a honey-badger-like moxie when it comes to weathering the effects of chemical weapons. But there is a whole other class of creatures that does not cower before the venomous villains of the wild. Which makes sense: Any animal that can kill with little more than a prick of the skin is worthy of our respect. We humans spend a lot of time standing in awe and fear of the world’s most venomous creatures. In our reverence for the venomous, are we overlooking an equally admirable group of animals? For woodrats, venom immunity is like having a can of Fix-A-Flat in the car: You hope you never need it, but it’s handy in a pinch. Makes sense, right? If you’re a cute little ball of fur that lives in rattlesnake country, then it’d sure be swell to be able to take a bite or two and still make it to hot yoga on time. Woodrats, as it turns out, are immune to rattlesnake venom. And yet, when the scientists repeated the trial, they found that the woodrats not only held their own against the rattlers, the rodents sometimes scratched and bit the snakes. Woodrats weigh less than a pound, have neither large claws nor crazy fangs, and certainly don’t look capable of tangoing with a full-grown rattlesnake. Now, the woodrat is no honey badger, the snake-defying creature crowned by the internet as the namesake of casual badassery. The snake attacked by sinking its fangs into the rat’s fur-a maneuver that’s usually followed by near-instant hemorrhaging, clotting in the liver, and cardiac arrest.īut instead of keeling over, the rodent stared back at the God of Death and whispered: Thinking it didn’t make much difference what kind of rodent the serpents ate, the student offered one of the Center’s western diamondback rattlesnakes a plump, fuzzy woodrat. In 1976, a student at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville was tasked with feeding the snakes in what is now the university’s National Natural Toxins Research Center.
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