SNAKE'S -STUDENTS- SNARLS : ESOTERIC ESSAYING

SERPENTINE STRATEGIES : Lights, Camera, Venom : The drama of a snake strike. FOR a mouse or human, it takes less than half a second to register a threat and react.

But venomous snakes can launch themselves at and bite prey in a fraction of that time. Oh dear, dear me! '' It's ridiculously fast, '' said Alistair Evans, a zoologist at Monash University in Australia.

In a new study, Dr. Evans's team used high-speed video cameras to record the rapid movements of 36 species of venomous snakes. Dr. Evans had help from Anthony Herrel, an evolutionary biologist in Paris who collaborates on research with Venon World, which produces venom used to make anti-venoms.

Dr. Herrel filmed the snakes at 1,000 frames per second alongside Venom World staff and Silke Cleuren, then a Monash student.

They placed a cylinder of ballistic gel at the end of a pole. They then presented it to snakes from three families. The animals missed often, but their successful attacks were striking.

When prey moved close, vipers exploded to life, quickly accelerating their heads. In one video featuring the sharp-nosed viper, within tens of milliseconds, '' It's opening its mouth and boom, the fangs are inserted,'' Dr. Herrel said.

After injecting its venom, the snake released the cylinder.

That elapids, snakes that includes cobras, mambas and taipans, crept closer to their prey, struck more slowly and repeatedly squeezed their jaws. Each time the jaw muscles contracted, venom was pushed into the fangs to be pumped into the prey.

The researchers also examined two types of colubrids whose fangs were positioned in the back of the mouth.

After connecting with the gel, these snakes raked their teeth across it, lacerating their would-be-victim so the venom dispensed from those rear fangs could flow into open wounds.

The World Students Society thanks ARI DANIEL.