The president need not be a trained herpetologist. [View all]

[cab67]

Last edited Tue Dec 16, 2025, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

I do, however, ask that the president not just make shit up as he goes.

Yesterday, he told a story about a doctor who'd been bitten by a viper in Peru.

Among his claims - "28,000 people die of snakebite every year in Peru." The actual number is closer to 10.

He also mentioned mambas - black and brown. There's no such snake as a "brown" mamba; there are black and green mambas. And unless something went wrong at a zoo, no one in Peru has been killed by a mamba - mambas are native to Africa and do not occur in South America. They're also not vipers, either - they're elapids related to cobras and coral snakes.

The doctor in question was evidently bitten by a fer-de-lance a while back. Fer-de-lances actually are true vipers, though I don't know if the bite happened in Peru.

Important point? Probably not. But it shows how he just makes things up as he goes, and that's not good for any head of state.

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Useless personal anecdote added on edit: Last year, I encountered a close relative of mambas near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia - a coastal taipan.

Coastal taipans are among the most venomous snakes in the world. But in fact, the snake was a tiny juvenile (maybe 18 inches long; they reach 8 feet), and although taipan venom is nasty, their fangs aren't very large - meaning it probably wouldn't have gotten through my jeans had it bitten me, much less my boots. And the snake knew I was there long before I saw it and was already clearing out.

But I'd forgotten of a lesson learned long ago - that it's ok to relate such stories to one's spouse, provided one doesn't provide all of the details. I told my wife that the taipan I saw wasn't a threat. But I stupidly added, "Besides - this was a coastal taipan. The coastal taipan isn't the most venomous snake in the world. That would be the inland taipan."

The first time I learned that was when I told my (now ex) spouse about the Mozambique cobra I encountered in a coffee plantation in Tanzania. Saying I saw the snake was fine. Adding that I was out of spitting range went too far. I thought that would have been good information, but reminding her that cobras can spit was more alarming than it should have been.