Ilha de Queimada Grande-World’s Deadliest Place
Read Time:1 Minute, 39 Second
There are some places on earth where humans just cannot go, and an island off the coast of Sao Paolo, Brazil is one of those places. Ilha de Queimada Grande, also known as Snake Island, is said to be home to the golden lancehead viper, a deadly snake that boasts venom five times stronger than any other snake.
Some believe there’s a golden lancehead viper for every square meter of , or as many as 4,000 of them, Smithsonian reports; others say there are five per square meter, the Wall Street Journal notes.
Thanks to rising sea levels 11,000 years ago, the snakes were separated from the mainland and evolved separately from their continental cousins. Having found themselves without predators and prey at ground-level, two things happened: Their numbers boomed, and they turned to migratory birds as a food source. To keep their bitten birds from flying out of reach, golden lancehead vipers evolved venom as much as five times stronger than that of mainland snakes, allowing them to down the birds almost immediately.
Their venom is so powerful it can literally melt flesh and kill a human within an hour; their bites carry a 7% chance of death. Today the island is devoid of human life, though the navy services an automated lighthouse there annually. The last lighthouse keeper, his wife, and their three kids were rumored to be killed by the snakes in the ’20s, reports Atlas Obscura, with the story going that they fled their home in an effort to get to their boat, only to be further attacked by snakes in the trees above them.
Today, one can only visit with a permit granted by the Brazilian government, and only with a doctor in tow. The country is also home to the Brazilian wandering spider, the world’s most venomous spider, the Journal notes.
Thanks to Newser for story contributions.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
My mother is considering a holiday to somewhere she’s never been before but can’t decide where….mmmmm…..
…BEHAVE NORMAN! 😉
Great post Mike. I watch a NatGeo special on this place a couple of years ago. The interesting thing about these little critters is that they are not really aggressive. In other words they, like most all snakes, are ambush hunters and hide in the trees where there natural prey usually come in and land. But, like any other snake if one should disturb or frighten them they will likely pay the price with their life. The guy who was doing the special on them actually handled a couple of them and was, I presume, an expert. He said that not only had their venom gotten strong but had also morphed a bit from the the Lance Head snakes on the mainland. The mainland snakes were predominately a hemotoxin venom and the Golden Lancehead had somehow develop some qualities of a nuerotoxin so not only was the prey hit quickly with the venom, it was paralyzed almost instantaneously.
I love stuff like this Bill, and as mentioned in the article, evolution armed the Golden Lancehead with a venom that is 5x stronger than any other snake. It can now completely kill, or paralyze birds before they can fly away. Amazing how nature takes care of its critters.
I feel sorry for any sailor who should be so unfortunate as to be shipwrecked and marooned on that island.
Especially considering that if you are in too remote an area, cell phones often fail to work!
Just imagine the tragedy it would be if some rebellious Brazilian teenagers should take a boat, and in violation of Brazilian law, go to that dangerous island as a thrill seeking dare!
Teens would be just the ones to do it too Ross.
And we used he beautiful and inhabited Bikini Atoll as a nuclear test area instead of this one?
Good point Stacey! Perhaps we couldn’t get permission from the Brazilian government to essentially nuke one of their islands, snake infested or not.
One more reason, as if I needed any, to avoid São Paulo. If these snakes learn to swim, we are all doomed.
I was thinking that when researching this article James.
I don’t think I’ll take the family to this island. Scary.