Snake Venom
YouTube: Brave Wilderness

Snake Venom Does Crazy Things to Human Blood

This is what snake venom does to human blood.

Many humans have a hard-wired fear of snakes, especially venomous ones. While most people know that snake venom is dangerous, not many know WHY it can be so harmful to your health. Enter one of our favorite YouTube nature hosts Coyote Peterson.

This man has made a living getting bitten and stung by some of the most dangerous insects and animals on the plant. However, the bite of an eastern diamondback rattlesnake, a cottonmouth and water moccasin are far too dangerous to take on, even for a "king of sting" like Coyote.

For this experiment he does the next best thing. Coyote has blood drawn and then they add the venom from recently milked snakes to see what it does to the blood. You will learn a great deal about how snake venom affects the human body from this video.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

As they said, this experiment is obviously a little crude, but there were differences between the types of venom that were visible to the naked eye. Something is going on in that blood once it has been mixed with the venom. It is obviously breaking down the cells and thinning it out with the water moccasin and copperhead. The rattlesnake reaction was most interesting because there was obvious coagulation there. We are looking forward to the sequel experiment and are hoping it shows what is going on at a microscopic level.

This experiment may have been a little on the gruesome side, but it was an interesting one to watch and just helps to underscore why it is important to leave venomous snakes alone when you run across them. Most recorded venomous snake bites seem to happen when someone tries to handle or harm the animal. If you leave the snake alone, they will usually leave you alone too.

We did have to laugh a bit, this is the guy who has been bitten and stung by some of the creepiest bugs on the planet, but he seemed more stressed by a little needle than any of those encounters. Some people just do not do well with their blood being drawn. Thanks for the interesting experiment Coyote and we look forward to seeing what you do next!

For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels

NEXT: TEXAS IS STILL LOSING THE WAR ON FERAL HOGS

WATCH