In the Mangshan area of Hunan Province, China, there lives a two-meter-long poisonous snake, each worth up to 1 million, and there are only more than 500 in the world, which is more precious than the giant panda.
Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake
The original name of the Mangshan Ironhead Viper is mangshan original spearhead viper, an adult Mangshan original spearhead viper, from head to tail, the total length can reach 2 meters, and the body size is about 20kg.
The appearance of the snake has yellow-green stripes, interspersed with some black-brown mesh scales, just like the dead leaves on the ground, and the head of the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake is like a triangular soldering iron, so it will be called the python soldering iron-headed snake.
It is also a poisonous snake species unique to China.
It mainly lives in the Mangshan area of Hunan Province, China, but in Guangdong and Guangxi, there are also Mangshan iron-headed snakes.
Mangshan Natural Scenic Area
Who discovered the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake?
In 1984, Dr. Chen Yuanhui, a local snake doctor in Mangshan, received a special patient.
The patient was a worker in mangshan forest area, and on this day he was working in mangshan forest area as usual, when suddenly, he was bitten by a snake in the grass.
At that time, the wound immediately began to swell, so the employee found Chen Yuanhui.
When Dr. Chen Yuanhui saw the patient's wound, he felt that this matter was not so simple, the traces of the poisonous teeth had been particularly large, the size of this poisonous snake was certainly not small, and the toxicity was particularly strong, and it took a full three months to discharge the toxins in the employee's body.
The employee described to Chen Yuanhui that this snake is about one meter and five meters, the snake head is particularly large, just like a large triangle, the snake body is green, mixed with some black and brown markings, and at the tail of the snake, there are white markings, not a five-step snake, nor a belly snake.
At that time, Chen Yuanhui felt that the snake that bit the staff was definitely a new breed of poisonous snake in the Mangshan area, which had not yet been discovered.
Since then, Chen Yuanhui has been searching for five years in the Mangshan area with his own doubts.
In these five years, all the family's savings were spent, and relatives and friends called them "crazy", but Chen Yuanhui did not care about the discussion of others.
Finally, the kung fu paid off, and in early September 1989, Chen Yuanhui received an excited phone call, and by the river in the Mangshan forest area, a patrol worker found two large snakes that he had never seen before.
These two large snakes are very similar to the snake that Chen Yuanhui usually said, the head is in the shape of a large triangle, and the body length is about one meter, the whole body is green mixed with black and brown markings, and at the tail of the snake, there is a white stripe.
Chen Yuanhui, who heard this news, immediately rushed to the scene and was also shocked by the two large snakes in front of him.
He had studied the types of snakes for more than ten years, but he had never seen such a large poisonous snake, but through the appearance of the snake, he was sure that this was the white-tailed snake he had been looking for for five years.
At that time, Chen Yuanhui made a risky decision to take this nest of snakes home and raise them.
In the process of research, an accident occurred, Chen Yuanhui's left middle finger was bitten by a snake, Chen Yuanhui did not rush to treatment at the first time, but took a digital camera and took pictures of his wounds.
An hour later, the snake venom attacked all over the body, Chen Yuanhui also completely comatose, at that time in the hospital, in order to save his life, Chen Yuanhui could only amputate his left middle finger, since then, Chen Yuanhui with the snake every day.
In order to determine the identity of this snake, in early 1990, Chen Yuanhui found Zhao Ermi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a zoologist.
When this snake appeared in front of Zhao Ermi's eyes, through his porcelain-like scales, including some physical characteristics, there was no such snake in domestic and foreign records.
So at that time, the two jointly signed to announce to the world that China had discovered a new snake species, which was determined by research to be a soldering iron head snake of the viper subfamily Of the Viper family, and Dr. Chen Yuanhui killed this snake as: Mangshan soldering iron head snake.
This report has been issued, the global zoological community is also quite shocked, Mangshan iron-headed snake, but also all over the world, extremely rare number, so that Mangshan iron-headed snake, the black market outlaws worry, if it is not Dr. Chen Yuanhui, this snake will eventually become extinct.
How toxic is the Mangshan iron-headed snake?
To say that the world's largest and most venomous snake is not the Mangshan soldering iron head snake, but the king cobra.
Although the toxicity of the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake is particularly strong, compared with the silver-ringed snake king cobra, the Mangshan iron-headed snake is much less toxic.
When Chen Yuanhui was studying the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake, he was accidentally bitten, and he was directly unconscious for two days and two nights, in order to save his life, he could only choose to amputate a finger.
If you look at the snake's LD50 value, the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake is far less poisonous than the king cobra and the silver ring snake.
The smaller the value, the more poisonous, from the value of these three poisonous snakes, the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake is far less poisonous than the silver ring snake, the Indian king cobra.
Why does mangshan soldering ironhead snake cost one million per piece?
Since Chen Yuanhui discovered the Mangshan iron-headed snake, the price of each snake on the black market has been speculated to 1 million.
As soon as this news was released, many people risked their lives to arrest this snake in the Mangshan area, which almost caused the extinction of the Mangshan iron-headed snake.
The venom of the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake is not as valuable as the venom of the king cobra, and its meat has no medicinal value except that it can be eaten, and the reason why it can be fried to the price of millions of dollars per strip is mainly the following two reasons.
In 1994, the Mangshan soldering ironhead snake was listed as an endangered species with priority protection at the international level.
In 2014, the State Forestry Administration released a list of "11 species of wild animals in China that are more endangered than giant pandas and in need of rescue and protection", and the Mangshan iron-headed snake ranked tenth.
In the world, the number is only about 500, and these 500 or so Mangshan soldering iron head snakes, all of which are in the Mangshan area of Hunan Province, China, except for the two Mangshan soldering iron heads found in Guangdong and Guangxi, which are not at all in other parts of China.
This means that on the whole of the earth, except for China, which has about 500 Mangshan soldering iron-headed snakes, there are no other countries at all.
It is conceivable that its rarity is precious, so some criminals have taken advantage of this to set the price of Mangshan iron-headed snake to 1 million per piece.
Mangshan iron-headed snake, in addition to the scarcity of the number, its own value, is not as nutritious as ginseng.
Venom is particularly ordinary, the flesh quality has no medicinal value, some outlaws on the black market, using the characteristics of rarity as expensive, deliberately will be the price of mangshan soldering iron head snake, speculated to millions.
It's like a real-life plate of walnuts, a pair of walnuts with complex textures, which are fried to 1 million a pair.
Illegal speculation has led some lawbreakers, rather than being bitten, but also breaking the law, illegally capturing mangshan soldering iron head snake, selling it abroad through the black market, and obtaining high illegal profits.
summary:
In the face of some demand on the black market, some unscrupulous merchants take advantage of the characteristics of rarity and value, and deliberately hype and brag about the price of mangshan soldering iron head snake, which makes the price of mangshan soldering iron head snake jump to one million.
Poached by some lawbreakers, the Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake, which has a relatively small number at all, has emerged to the point of extinction.
Tangshan iron-headed snake as the only snake suborder viper in the mainland, its existence can make the continent's biodiversity more complete, once this snake goes extinct, then the ecological balance of the entire Mangshan area of Hunan Province will also be destroyed.