West Texas – field venom extraction

Mike Hogan put together a short video of how we process venomous snakes in the field. In the video, venom extraction is being performed by Mark Margres, with Micaiah Ward and Alyssa Bigelow assisting. Both animals being processed are Crotalus ornatus. The goal is to get venom and blood samples from each individual while minimizing handling and stress on the animal. The blood samples are used for genetics, and the venom samples are analyzed proteomically to compare venom compositions between species or population (such as we did here).

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