The Delaware Valley Herpetological Society had a great meeting on Friday. Scott talked about venomous snake bite, covering everything from the basics of the biology of venom and its delivery, its effects on the victim, snakebite epidemiology, to some scary new problems like coral snake antivenin going out of production.

Ned brought in some interesting preserved specimens from the Academy of Natural Sciences' collection. Dig this photo of a timber rattler (Crotalus horridus) collected in Burlington County, NJ. That's not too remarkable - Burlington County is well known as hosting timber rattlers - until you read the label and see that this snake was donated to the Academy in 1840!