A quick post.

First a thanks to everyone who commented the other day, it is good to hear from you.
“You’re doing OK, keep it up” is a message I can certainly live with.

Today was pretty hot, (about 38°C or 100°F in the old money). It was also really humid. So it was not at all surprising that the weather built into thunderstorms in the evening.

About 6:00 pm the most amazing black clouds began moving across from the west.

They the sky got so dark and the clouds were so ominous looking that I thought a couple of shots were worth posting.

This is looking diagonally across the road.

And this is looking directly across the road from our front door.

Now back briefly to my throw away statement about Aussie snake venom in my last post.

According to my nearest and dearest, I was telling you porkies.

She hopped on the website belonging to The University of Melbourne’s Australian Venom Research Unit.

According to their data, which I provide below, out of the 25 most poisonous snakes in the world, 1 through to 11 on the list are Aussie species. Further, a full 20 of the 25 are from Oz as well.

The information below is lifted from their site.

World's Most Venomous Snakes

Which snake species is the most venomous depends on the measure used. The average or the maximum venom yield from milking could be suggested, but these measures can be criticised as not reflecting the impact of a real bite. The measure generally acknowledged as best reflecting how dangerous a snake's venom is is that of LD₅₀. The lower this number, the less venom is required to cause death. By that measure, the most venomous snake in the world is Australia's inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus). The table below gives the top 25 species in order, their LD₅₀, and their distribution.

	Snake Species	LD50*	Distribution
1.	Inland taipan	0.025	Australia
2.	Eastern brown snake	0.053	Australia
3.	Coastal taipan	0.099	Australia
4.	Tiger snake	0.118	Australia
5.	Black tiger snake	0.131	Australia
6.	Beaked sea snake	0.164	Australia
7.	Black tiger snake (Chappell Island ssp.)	0.194 - 0.338	Australia
8.	Death adder	0.400	Australia
9.	Gwardar	0.473	Australia
10.	Spotted brown snake	0.360 (in bovine serum albumin)	Australia
11.	Australian copperhead	0.560	Australia
12.	Cobra	0.565	Asia
13.	Dugite	0.660	Australia
14.	Papuan black snake	1.09	New Guinea
15.	Stephens' banded snake	1.36	Australia
16.	Rough scaled snake	1.36	Australia
17.	King cobra	1.80	Asia
18.	Blue-bellied black snake	2.13	Australia
19.	Collett's snake	2.38	Australia
20.	Mulga snake	2.38	Australia
21.	Red-bellied black snake	2.52	Australia
22.	Small eyed snake	2.67	Australia
23.	Eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake	11.4	North America
24.	Black whipsnake	>14.2	Australia
25.	Fer-de-lance	>27.8	South America

Here is their link if you want to check it out for yourselves.


So I suppose the moral of the story is: tread carefully in the Great South Land.