When it comes to the Dragon Boat Festival, the first thing that comes to mind may be Zongzi, Dragon Boat and Qu Yuan, but according to research, in the Spring and Autumn Period before Qu Yuan, Chu, Wu, Yue and other places have begun to hold ceremonial activities on the fifth day of the first month of May. Most of the purposes of these activities are to drive away evil spirits, and we can still see the shadow of these activities: perfume sachets, hanging calamus, burning wormwood, drinking male yellow, etc. are all means used in ancient times to expel evil poisons. In the north of China, the Dragon Boat Festival also has the custom of eating "five poisonous cakes", although this kind of cake is just an ordinary cake cake stamped with five poisonous patterns or pressed out of the image of five poisons, but this also reflects people's desire to "eat" these poisonous insects, so that they can no longer poison the world's wishes.
The most common "five poisons" pattern on the five poisonous cakes are centipedes, snakes, scorpions, geckos and toads, but the legendary "five poisons" also have versions that replace scorpions or geckos with spiders, and in the Qing Dynasty Lü Zhongyu's "Five Poisons of Yan Mackerel and Gu Yu", the five poisons recorded are "centipedes, scorpions, snakes, bees, and stings".
The five poisons are actually still Chinese medicinal materials, this issue we will take a look at the situation of the five poisons.
@Miss Centipede: How about the centipede market?
A: Every year after the sting, the temperature warms up, the centipede hibernates and wakes up, and begins to unearth activities. Around the time of the Qingming Dynasty and the Small Manchuria, it is the new season of concentrated production. When laying eggs begins after the summer, the growth cycle of the larvae to the adult generally takes 4 years. As the market situation rises year by year, local farmers are induced by interests, regardless of the size of the insect body, wantonly captured, and wild resources have been seriously damaged. Under the cover of profit-driven, farmers in production areas have no way to talk about effective protection and sustainable use of centipede wild resources. So the production is getting less and less every year. Centipede, the market new goods listed, the source of goods has not changed much, the market flattened, the current centipede price of 15 cm between 3.2-3.3 yuan, 12 cm of 2.2-2.3 yuan, the product in recent years supply and demand balance, is expected to fluctuate in the future market is small.
In all versions of the "Five Poisons", centipedes have "winning bids", and it seems that "centipedes are poisonous insects" is the consensus of people. Indeed, even people who see the centipede for the first time will be startled by its slender and multi-legged alien body, and the legend of the "centipede essence" sucking the brain marrow of the child should also leave a big shadow on our young minds.
Multi-legged, I am afraid that the centipede left the most profound impression on people, so the centipede is also known as "centipede". In general, though, centipedes usually don't have as many feet. For example, the lesser spiny centipede, which is more common in the Jiangnan region, has only 21 segments visible to fully mature individuals (the actual 25 sections, of which the first and last three sections are small and extremely insignificant), and the centipedes belong to the Myriapoda lip-foot (Chilopoda), each segment has only one pair of feet, so in addition to the antennae of the head and the elongated tail foot located at the tail, the lesser spiny centipede uses only 20 pairs of feet, that is, 40. The real "hundred-legged insects" should be the horselustes who belong to the same polypoda but belong to diplopoda, which not only have many body nodes, but also have two pairs of feet on one section, and the number of feet can easily reach hundreds of pairs.
Although the number of feet is not dominant, the centipede is one of the most poisonous insects, a pair of specialized feet of its first trunk segment, the jaw foot. The centipede's jaws are sharp and powerful and connected to the venom glands. When the centipede preys, it first unexpectedly grasps the prey with the first few pairs of steps, and then stabs the prey with the jaw foot and injects venom. The venom of centipedes mainly contains a variety of enzymes, such as phosphosterase, protease, hyaluronidase, etc. [1]. Among them, phospholipase is believed to cause damage to cell membranes, especially nerve cell membranes; Proteases and hyaluronidase, on the other hand, break down prey tissue. And these venom components are extremely lethal to insects and vertebrates. In nature, centipedes feed on other insects, birds, and small mammals, and if bitten by a centipede, subcutaneous bleeding, edema, tissue necrosis, and even death can occur.
@ Snake Management: How about the snake aftermarket? How about the Snake Market?
A: In the "List of Wild Medicinal Material Species under National Key Protection", the snake is listed as a national second-level protected wild medicinal material species. With the increase of management of wild resources, the source of wild goods has decreased year by year. At present, many areas in China have developed artificial breeding of snakes, but snakes need a growth cycle of 2-3 years, and the technical requirements are high. Therefore, the income from breeding is not high, and it is difficult to form a scale of domestication.
Anguo market: snake, the market can supply the source of quantity, the demand is general, the market continues to remain stable, the current market snake price open net goods at 1800 yuan, the business attention is general, the future market changes continue to pay attention.
The venomous snake is terrible because of its sharp fangs and deadly venom. Cobras and vipers are the main group of poisoning because of their large fangs and their location at the front of the maxilla, making them easier to penetrate into their prey when attacking prey. In contrast, some swimming snakes and sea snakes, although also venomous glands, are located on the back of the jawbone and do not easily penetrate the prey, so their risk is relatively low.
For cobras and vipers, the teeth and venom methods of the two are slightly different. The former has a groove behind the venom tooth to transport the venom, hence the name groove tooth; The venom transport route of vipers is closed as a pipe called a tube tooth. The venom of cobras contains more cholinesterase, basal polypeptides and other substances, which can hinder the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles, so it is called nerve venom; The venom of vipers adds protease, hyaluronase, etc., which can destroy tissues on a large scale and cause hemolysis or coagulation, so it is called blood poison. Of course, this "nerve poison" and "blood poison" are only a rough division, and almost all venomous snakes use these two types of toxins together.
@Scorpion Franchise: Please analyze the situation of the whole scorpion market?
A: This year's enthusiasm for picking is high, and the collection yield has increased. According to the investigators in Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other areas, and the first-line scorpion traders and scorpion farmers to investigate and understand, with the advent of new production, the number of catchers increased compared with last year, every night around 8 o'clock, before 11 o'clock to return, 80 grams per person per night ranges from 80 grams to 200 grams, according to the per capita calculation of 150 grams of profit of about 120 yuan, still can drive scorpion farmers to capture, collection enthusiasm does not decrease. Since the whole scorpion family species technology is not yet mature, wild resources dominate the market. In the context of the rapid development of the health industry, there is a demand of 500-600 tons, coupled with the demand for edible health care, the whole scorpion market is worth paying attention to.
Scorpion venom is very similar to spider venom and is mainly composed of small peptides. Scorpion toxins can be divided into two categories according to molecular size, but both types act on nerve receptors: one class is slightly larger in molecular weight and acts on sodium channels on the nerve surface; Another class has a small molecular weight and acts on channels such as potassium ion channels, chloride channels, etc. [5]. Both scorpion toxins can act as paralyzing prey.
However, scorpion venom and spider venom differ greatly in the object of action. Neurotoxins, which account for about 10 to 50 percent of scorpion venom, have a strong lethal effect on mammals, compared with only about 1 percent specifically targeted at insects [6]. Why do scorpions have to be so reluctant with mammals? One possible explanation is that scorpions differentiated earlier from the arachnids, mainly on the ground, and were more likely to encounter mammalian predation than the later, multi-arboreal spiders, and it is reasonable that scorpions with "killer skills" for mammals survived under the predatory pressure of mammals.
@ Tacit understanding: What is the price of the market toad?
Answer: Toad skin, the market can be supplied with sufficient supply, the market is flat with the previous period, the current market toad skin price of small goods at 2.5 yuan / zhang, the price of medium goods at 4 yuan / zhang, large goods at a price of 5 yuan / zhang, the future market changes continue to pay attention. The price of toad crisp varies greatly, with 15,000-23,000 kilograms being received.
The most common toads in China are the big toad (Bufo bufo), the Chinese big toad (B. gargarizans) and the black frame toad (B. melanostictus), the image of these three toads is also quite similar, together constitute the classic image of "toad". Behind the eyes of these toads there is a huge bulge called the paraauricular gland. The white emulsion secreted by the paraauricular glands— the toad crisp — is the source of toad toxicity. The chemical composition of toad crisp is more complex, including toad poison ligand compounds, toad toxin compounds and toad poison tryptamine compounds. Among them, most of the toad ligand compounds have a structure similar to cardiac glycosides, which can promote an increase in heart rate and increased heart beats, while toad toxic triptamine compounds have mostly hallucinogenic abilities.
@ Gecko counterfeits: There are many gecko counterfeits in the market, how to identify?
A: Gecko, also known as "Tianlong", originates and distributes in secluded places such as between walls and under elms, and enters and exits the ceiling and walls at night, preying on mosquitoes, flies and other insects. It is distributed in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places. At present, the price of gecko prices is around 550 yuan, and the price of all high-quality goods is 700 yuan; There are other imported geckos on the market, with a unified price of 180 yuan and high-quality goods at 230 yuan. In addition to physical and chemical identification, the empirical identification of the two is actually very simple: first, look at the color, gecko black lizard tiger yellow; Second, looking at the size, the gecko is obviously larger than the lizard tiger; Looking at the appearance, the gecko's ring-like pattern from the whole body to the tail is very obvious. At the same time, adult geckos often have two milky white clumps on the neck near the jaw, which are milky white and creamy.
Take gecko urine , for example — geckos don't urinate. Like birds, the metabolite of geckos is uric acid, and their excrement is recycled when it passes through the ureter, bladder and other parts, while the water-insoluble uric acid is combined with sodium and potassium plasma to form urate, which is mixed with feces after entering the cloaca and is excreted. It is precisely because of this efficient method of water recovery that geckos and other reptiles have the ability to adapt to dry environments.
![Another scandal! Cheating discrimination sexual assault, West Point military school five poisons are all based on why they were put on the altar?[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)