Eastern coral snake
Micrurus fulvius
— Where the name comes from
Micrurus is “small tail”, from mikrós and ourá, and the tails of these snakes are indeed very short relative to the body; fulvius means “tawny”. The common name looks instead at the red, yellow and black rings that make it one of the most recognisable animals in America — and one of the most imitated.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Squamates
- Habitat
- Sandy pinewoods, oak woods, scrub, gardens
- Range
- The south-eastern United States
- Size
- 60–90 cm, 100–200 g
- Diet
- Other snakes, lizards, amphibians
- Lifespan
- 7 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It spends nearly all its life under leaf litter and in the soil.
- 02
Its fangs are short and fixed: it must chew to deliver venom.
- 03
The venom acts on the nerves and symptoms can appear hours after the bite.
— What sets it apart
In the United States a rhyme is taught to tell it from its harmless imitators — “red touches yellow, kills a fellow; red touches black, friend of Jack” — and it works, but only there: in Mexico and South America the order of the rings changes and the rule inverts, with consequences one can imagine. The specific antivenom, meanwhile, stopped being produced in the United States in 2010 because it was not profitable: since then the stocks have been kept past their expiry and re-authorised year by year.
