bbc.co.uk navigation

Venom dripping out of a prairie rattlesnake

Venomous

Venomous organisms inflict poisonous wounds by actively biting, stinging or scratching their victims and injecting toxins into them. This distinguishes them from poisonous species which usually contain or secrete toxins and need to touched or eaten to contaminate their victims. Envenomation can be a predatory tactic or a defence mechanism. It can be costly to produce and to inject toxins, so often organisms will use as little venom as possible in an attack.

Watch video clips from past programmes (25 clips)

In order to see this content you need to have an up-to-date version of Flash installed and Javascript turned on.

View all 25 video clips

Plants with this adaptation

About

Venom is the general term referring to any variety of toxins used by certain types of animals that inject it into their victims by the means of a bite, sting or other sharp body feature. Unlike poison, which is ingested or inhaled, venom is usually delivered directly into the lymphatic system, where it acts faster.

The potency of different venoms varies; lethal venoms are often characterised by the median lethal dose (LD50, LD50, or LD-50), expressed in terms of mass fraction (e.g., milligrams of toxin per kilogram of body mass), that will kill 50% of victims of a specified type (e.g., laboratory mice).

Read more at Wikipedia

This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. If you find the content in the 'About' section factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia. For more information on our use of Wikipedia please read our FAQ.

Behaviours

Other Predation strategy behaviours

BBC News about Venomous

See all Venomous news stories

Video collections

Take a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.

  • What on Earth...? 2009 What on Earth...? 2009

    Watch the year's highlights from the BBC's exploration of the planet's hidden corners and rarest creatures: from the turquoise seas of the South Pacific to the Lost Land of the Volcano.

  • Nature's record breakers Nature's record breakers

    Animal kingdom record breakers - how fast can a cheetah run, how heavy is an elephant and what's bigger than a dinosaur? Watch amazing video clips from the BBC archive and uncover the fascinating facts about our smallest primate, the longest stick insect and the most venomous snake.

  • The wildlife of Life The wildlife of Life

    In autumn 2009, a major new series brought us life as we've never seen it before.

  • George's marvellous minibeasts George's marvellous minibeasts

    A video collection featuring bugs and insects in amazing close up selected by insect expert and TV presenter George McGavin, with Goliath spiders, killer centipedes, ants and moths.

  • David Attenborough's favourite moments David Attenborough's favourite moments

    Watch the most memorable moments from an incredible career watching wildlife, chosen by Sir David from the BBC archive.

Elsewhere on the BBC

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.