Venom resistance in kingsnakes

A kingsnake eating a rattlesnake

Kingsnakes get their name because they eat other snakes, including venomous snakes like copperheads, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes. They also eat lots of other kinds of prey, including non-venomous snakes, lizards, turtle eggs, and small mammals.

You often hear people say that kingsnakes are resistant or immune to the venom of copperheads, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes. There is a subtle difference between the meaning of these two words.

Resistance is any physiological ability to tolerate or counteract the effects of a toxin or disease. Like many things in biology, resistance is not an all-or-nothing status, but a gradient. High enough resistance can result in immunity, where the toxin or disease has negligible or no effects.

A kingsnake eating a cottonmouth

Individuals can acquire resistance through repeated exposure to low doses of a toxin. The immune system recognizes the toxin as foreign and attacks it. It forms a memory of each attack and stores the pattern for later, which makes later responses to the same toxin quicker and more effective. If the toxin dose is later increased, the memory is reinforced & may become stronger. This is how antivenom is made, how people become resistant to snake venom, and also how vaccines against infectious diseases work.¹

It is not how kingsnake resistance to viper venom works. Kingsnake resistance is evolved rather than acquired. This means that kingsnakes are born resistant to venom. As far as we know, their resistance levels are fixed for life & don’t change with age or exposure. This has happened over a long time through natural selection, over many generations of kingsnakes. We don't actually have a very exact  understanding of the physiological and molecular mechanisms behind how kingsnakes resist the toxic effects of viper venom. At least some of their resistance comes from antibodies—chemicals in their blood that interfere with the venom—because mice injected with kingsnake blood survive viper venom better than those that aren't, and the chemical composition of kingsnake blood changes after exposure to viper venom.

A kingsnake eating a western hognose snake

Any time a weapon appears, there is potential for counter-weapons (i.e. resistance and immunity) to appear in response. This happens through a process called a co-evolutionary arms race². Just as the United States and the Soviet Union were involved in an arms race centered around nuclear weapons during the Cold War, so are venomous snakes and their prey & predators involved in arms races centered around their primary weapon—venom.

A major difference is that, unlike nations or humans, animals cannot plan for the future and decide to invest more energy in research & development of novel or better weapons technology for future generations. Instead, co-evolutionary arms races happen through natural selection. What start out as tiny variations in toxin resistance can be magnified over many generations. 

A kingsnake and a copperhead biting one another

When vipers were first evolving their front fangs, defensive bites became a new option for them. At first, their predators were probably not very good at resisting the effects of the venom, especially if the predator’s physiology was similar to that of their prey, and venom would have made a very good defense mechanism. Vipers would sometimes be killed and eaten, but many predators later died from their bites. Kingsnake predators that were slightly better able to tolerate the effects of the venom were more likely to survive. Eventually, all the kingsnakes without these venom resistance traits had been killed by vipers that they tried to eat, and only the resistant ones remained. On the other side, vipers that had venom with toxins that were, for example, slightly more painful or fast-acting, might have been more likely to survive a predatory attack. Thus, the arms race escalates. Vipers also exhibit flipping, jerking, “body bridging” and other escape behaviors as a defense against kingsnakes—suggesting, since they do not try to bite kingsnakes in defense, that their venom is essentially useless as an anti-kingsnake defense mechanism by now and that kingsnakes have “won” this arms race.

A mongoose eating a boomslang

This is why kingsnakes are immune to the venom of copperheads, cottonmouths, and North American rattlesnakes, but not to the venom of, for example, king cobras or black mambas. Because they live on different continents, there has never been an opportunity for kingsnakes and black mambas to enter into a co-evolutionary arms race (although both prey and predators of black mambas in Africa, such as honey badgers, and of king cobras in India, such as mongeese, have probably accomplished much the same thing).

Kingsnakes also eat coralsnakes, but amazingly they are not immune to the venom of Eastern Coralsnakes (Micrurus fulvius)—kingsnakes injected with coralsnake venom die quickly, and kingsnake blood is 0% effective at neutralizing venom proteins from coralsnakes. Presumably they are able to catch and consume coralsnakes without getting bitten. This could be because coralsnakes often eat other snakes, so perhaps their venom is more difficult for kingsnakes to evolve resistance against. Or, perhaps coralsnakes are rare or dangerous prey for kingsnakes, and it’s possible but not worth it for them to evolve resistance.

A milksnake constricting a Dekay's brownsnake

Not every kingsnake species has been tested against every venom, but we do know that there is variation in which species are immune to which venoms. The only study to compare species in depth injected mice with mixtures of venom & snake blood and measured mouse symptoms and survival. They found that blood from Eastern Kingsnakes (Lampropeltis getula) had the widest spectrum of protection against the venoms tested and was the most effective at neutralizing many rattlesnake venoms, but the least effective against copperhead venom. Blood from kingsnakes from Florida & the Gulf Coast was the most effective at neutralizing the venom of copperheads & cottonmouths. Mole Kingsnake (Lampropeltis calligaster) blood is about 75% as effective at neutralizing Mojave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) venom as the blood of Eastern Kingsnakes. Gray-banded Kingsnakes (L. alterna) have moderate neutralization potential against Western Diamondback (C. atrox) venom, but none against Eastern Diamondback (C. adamanteus) venom. Blood from milksnakes (formerly all called L. triangulum) from various locations had intermediate neutralization capacity, with blood from North American milksnakes being about 70% more effective against rattlesnake venom than blood from Central American milksnakes. Another study found that an eastern milksnake injected with copperhead venom died, and one injected with pigmy rattlesnake venom had "no noticeable ill effects", but a lack of replication prevents these results from being particularly meaningful. Somewhat surprisingly, blood from Long-nosed Snakes (Rhinocheilus lecontei), Cornsnakes (Pantherophis guttatus), Mussuranas (Clelia clelia), and Japanese Four-lined Ratsnakes (Elaphe quadrivirgata) was also effective at protecting mice from viper venoms, but blood from pinesnakes (Pituophis) and gartersnakes (Thamnophis) was not. Both vipers and elapids appear to have at least some level of resistance to their own venom, although detailed studies are lacking for most species.

Fight of the Mongoose and the Serpent Armies
An 1850 folio from the Mahabharata

Kingsnakes are just one of many species that have partial immunity or resistance to venom. Hedgehogs, skunks, opossums, and possibly snake-eagles also have resistance to viper venoms, and eels are resistant to sea krait venom. Unlike kingsnakes, we have actually figured out exactly which proteins in opossum blood are responsible for its snake venom neutralization capacity. We also know that mongeese have followed a different route, changing the shape of the toxin targets in their cells rather than putting molecules into their blood to combat the toxins (which means that their immunity cannot be transferred). Other predators of venomous snakes, such as indigo snakes (genus Drymarchon), appear to have gotten away with not evolving immunity, although I was unable to find any actual data on physiological responses of indigo snakes to venom, just statements saying they were not resistant, so it's possible that actual tests have not been carried out.

A mountain kingsnake constricting a skink

Opossum resistance to copperhead venom probably evolved in a similar way to kingsnake resistance, but vipers are also involved in co-evolutionary arms races with their prey. Many rodent prey of North American vipers are resistant, including wood rats, prairie voles, and ground squirrels. Think of how the U.S. during the Cold War had to balance foreign policy not just with the Soviet Union, but also with other nations. The emerging foreign policy is a compromise, just as the venom that evolves is a compromise of selection pressures from predators and prey. Resistant prey may select for venoms that are better at quickly incapacitating, whereas resistant predators may select for venoms that are less deadly and more painful; it’s difficult to predict exactly what will happen without knowing the exact mechanism of resistance. Sometimes selection from predators and prey may act in the same direction, other times in opposite directions. The details of these processes are what evolutionary biologists study on a day-to-day basis.

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1 Creating a vaccine against snake venom is harder than creating one against an infectious disease that is caused by a virus or a bacterium. There are pit viper venom vaccines available for dogs and horses, made from the venom of Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes, but none are available for humans. Additionally, the canine vaccines must be given twice per year, immediate veterinary care is still required, & protection against other species of venomous snakes is poor, so the technology has a long way to go.^↩

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2 The most famous co-evolutionary arms race is between toxin-resistant gartersnakes & tetrodotoxin-defended newts in the Pacific Northwest of the US & Canada, although there are many others, such as that between most pathogens & the immune systems of their hosts, between brood parasites such as cuckoos & their hosts, and between bad-tasting plants and herbivores.^↩

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

If you want to know more, I'd suggest chapter 3 of Christie Wilcox's book Venomous, from which I drew while researching & writing this article. Thanks to Connie Wade, Pierson Hill, Alan Cressler, Joe McDonald, Elana Erasmus, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons for providing their images for this article. Thanks to Laura Connelly for reading a draft of this article.

REFERENCES

A kingsnake eating a ringneck snake

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Life is Short, but Snakes are Long by Andrew M. Durso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The first invasive snake

Click here to read this post in Spanish!

Haga clic aquí para leer este blog en español!

Wolf Snakes (Lycodon aulicus) have become established
on Mauritius, where they threaten native skinks and geckos

Reptiles have been moving around the globe for a long time, often assisted by humans. Skinks and geckos had dispersed to the remotest Pacific islands by about 1600 BCE, at least partly thanks to the aid of the first human colonists of those regions. Brown Tree Snakes (Boiga irregularis) were brought from Australasia to Guam during World War II. In more recent decades, Burmese Pythons (Python molurus) have reached the Everglades, California Kingsnakes (Lampropeltis californiae) the Canary Islands, and Indian Wolf Snakes (Lycodon aulicus) the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. In many cases, these introduced populations of snakes have become invasive, disrupting the native ecosystem in numerous ways, mostly by eating their way through populations of native prey. The indirect effects of these dramatic population declines are unpredictable and profound. For example, on Guam the loss of native forest birds as a result of snake predation led to an explosion of spider populations, with a 40-fold increase in the number of webs compared with nearby islands without invasive snakes that still harbored a native bird community. Although species have been colonizing new ecosystems for a long time, the rapid rate at which they are now being facilitated by global trade is a serious ecological concern. But how new is this problem, exactly?

Where was the first recorded population of introduced snakes? Incredibly, three species of snakes were introduced to the Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean as far back as 2200 years ago. Having won the Second Punic War, the Roman Republic was expanding west into the Iberian peninsula, which they had taken from Carthage. As a result, transport and trade between the western and central Mediterranean were more regular than ever before, which may help explain the introduction of several species of amphibians and reptiles native to either the European or African mainland to the Balearics. The native people of the Balearics had served as mercenaries under both Rome and Carthage and were renowned for their skill with the sling, but Rome conquered their archipelago anyway shortly after the war and purposefully settled over 3,000 Spanish and Roman colonists there. It's likely that many of these people, understandably, missed their mainland homes, including the native plants and animals to which they were accustomed. They probably brought pet chameleons and tortoises with them, and surprisingly, keeping snakes as pets was also common, so they may have purposefully or accidentally introduced snakes from mainland Europe and Africa for this reason.

Ladder Snake, Rhinechis (Elaphe) scalaris
Their name reflects their dorsal pattern rather than their climbing prowess.

One species, the Ladder Snake (Rhinechis [Elaphe] scalaris), is endemic to the Iberian peninsula. It is a large, adaptable snake that eats mostly small mammals, similar to a North American ratsnake. Although it is easy to see how these snakes could have stowed away on ships, perhaps boarding to eat rats or mice that fed on grain or other goods, it has also been suggested that the Ladder Snake was introduced partly because it played a totemic purpose in mythology and religion. People encouraged non-venomous mammal-eating snakes to take up residence in and near their homes to keep populations of rats and mice under control, and having snakes around the home was thought to maintain the sexual potency of the home's male inhabitants. There is also some evidence that mammal-eating snakes were gathered up and released in areas where epidemics were rampant to help control rat or mouse vectors. This may have led to the association between the Roman god of healing, Aesculapius, whose staff is still a symbol of medicine today, and the Aesculapian Snake (Zamenis [Elaphe] longissimus), a relative of the Ladder Snake.

False Smooth Snake (Macroprotodon mauritanicus)

A smaller species, the False Smooth Snake (Macroprotodon mauritanicus [formerly cucullatus]), is native to northern Africa and southern Spain, where it preys upon small lizards. It might have been introduced to the Balearics accidentally, but no one is really sure how it got there. Apparently, False Smooth Snakes are at least partially responsible (introduced weasels, cats, and genets probably also contributed) for the extinction of an endemic species of lizard, Lilford's Wall Lizard (Podarcis lilfordi), a ground-dwelling, frugivorous species that once dispersed the seeds of a perennial shrub, Daphne rodriguezii. Since the wall lizards began to disappear from the large islands of the Balearics about 2000 years ago, the plants have suffered from a lack of seed disperal, a service formerly provided by the lizard, which would eat the fruit and crap out the seeds. On tiny offshore islets this relationship is still going strong, but on Menorca and Mallorca, where there are many snakes and no lizards, seedlings of D. rodriguezii sprout only underneath their parents, a losing strategy for a young plant.

Viperine Watersnake (Natrix maura)

Finally, the Viperine Watersnake (Natrix maura), a semi-aquatic natricine native to both southwestern Europe and northwest Africa, was introduced to both Menorca and Mallorca in ancient times. During naval battles, both the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians apparently used to throw open jars full of snakes into enemy warships to cause panic among the combatants (apparently even back then nobody could tell the difference between venomous and harmless snakes), which possibly led to or reinforced its populations on the islands. In the Balearics, these watersnakes eat endemic Mallorcan Midwife Toads (Alytes muletensis) (which they consume with impunity despite the frogs' toxins thanks to the snakes' immunity to a wide range of toxins), so a program of active eradication within the range of the frog has been enacted. The Viperine Watersnake could also have been responsible for the extinction of other endemic species of midwife toads never described but historically present.

Snakes may actually be some of the most problematic potential invasive species because they are difficult to detect and almost impossible to eradicate. Research has shown that if you're going to stop an invasive species, you had better stop it early or not at all, a tall order in the face of snakes' impressive crypsis and secretive behavior. Snakes' low energetic requirements allow them to persist through lengthy periods of resource scarcity, and their flexible metabolism allows them to quickly take advantage of resources when they are available, both adaptations to eating infrequent large meals. This scenario is ideal for an individual animal in transit or freshly introduced to a novel environment, who may need to have the ability to remain motionless without feeding or reproducing for long periods of time. Given snakes' long history with people, it's no wonder that Northern and Banded Watersnakes have become established in California, Aesculapian Snakes in Britain, Cornsnakes in the Cayman Islands, Catsnakes in Malta, Monocled Cobras and Habus in the Ryukyu Islands, and many other examples.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Rob, Javier Gállego, Aviad Bar, and Jose Zuñiga for the use of their photos.

REFERENCES

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Life is Short, but Snakes are Long by Andrew M. Durso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.