Talk:Bitis gabonica

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Good article Bitis gabonica has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
September 29, 2006 Good article nominee Listed
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Contents

[edit] Fangs

the gaboon viper has the longest fangs [5 cm] in the world —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.166.247.95 (talk • contribs)

According to Mallow et al. (2003), this is true. According to Spawls and Branch (1995), they even reach 55 mm! --Jwinius 21:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Antelopes

just how small would an antelope have to be to be eaten by a 1.5m long snake? a "pinky" antelope? i suspect the part regarding antelopes and monkeys should be removed, but i have added the {{fact}} template as i am not authoritative. ... aa:talk 00:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a big snake and the royal antelope is small (Neotragus). That the former has preyed upon the latter is reported Mallow et al. (2003). --Jwinius 21:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venom

An ld-50 of 0.14 would certainly make it one of the world's most venomous snakes however, the gaboon viper's ld-50 is no where NEAR 0.14 on ANY routes of envenomation. Subcutaneous bieng the most likely, Bitus gabonica ld-50 is 12.5. As per DR.Brian Grieg Fry, website: venomdoc.com. toddg

You are absolutely correct (whoever you are). An LD50 of 0.14 is more like sea snake venom -- way too potent for B. gabonica. We have good old "130.39.115.62" (1 June 2006) to thank for this totally unreferenced factoid. I plan to rewrite this article soon and will see to it personally that this information is corrected. As a matter of fact, I'll get rid of it now. --Jwinius 21:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

This article will be put on hold (for 7 days) until the minor adjustments asked in the additional comments are made:

1. Well written? Pass
2. Factually accurate? Pass
3. Broad in coverage? Pass
4. Neutral point of view? Pass
5. Article stability? Pass
6. Images? Pass

Additional comments :

  • Sections Description & Venom need more wikilinks.
  • Can Guinea, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo, Central African Republic, southern Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, eastern Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, eastern Zimbabwe, Mozambique, northeast KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa. be turned into a real phrase with SVO (missing the verb). Lincher 01:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA awarded

Mentioned additions were taken care of. Since all the criteria were met than this is a GA. Cheers, Lincher 01:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big nose horns on east African subspecies

In the show Seven Deadly Strikes, Austin Stevens was on the east side of Southern Africa, in the St. Lucia estuary when he found a female with abnormally large nose horns. Is the show staged, or is it just because this sometimes happens? Should there be a mention in the article about this??? Frankyboy5 07:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone should take shows like this too seriously. They're entertaining, and I like watching them myself, but so many scenes in wildlife series like this, from Marlin Perkins' Wild Kingdom onwards, have been staged to some extent, so they are of questionable scientific value. This particular story may have been completely staged, or there may also be some truth to it. For example, it could be that Austin Stevens did indeed find it there, but that it's an atypical specimen. It would therefore be interesting to find a reliable scientific account describing the B. gabonica population in St. Lucia in order to verify what you saw. --Jwinius 13:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Austin is accused by some "unreliable" (some however, may be zoo curators) people of abusing animals. Frankyboy5 05:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Zimbabwe habitat

Common Sense: Zimbabwe is a landlocked country, therefore you will not be finding Gaboon Vipers in the coastal forests. As there are no significant Dune Regions, don't try looking there either. They can, however, be found in the forested areas of the eastern highlands. To verify this info, look at a map. -- 86.135.108.144 14:37, 30 June 2007

Good point, although I wish you'd make yourself an account and discuss these things first here on the talk page. I suppose this is an example of me paraphrasing from Mallow et al. (2003) without thinking. This is the paragraph that I got my information from:

... In Zimbabwe, they are found only in high rainfall zones along the forested eastern escarpment. They are locally restricted to coastal forests, dune regions and remnant montane forest (Branch, 1992). ...

It was a mistake on my part to associate the second sentence with the first. Hopefully, the current description will be more to your liking. --Jwinius 13:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic addition of "class=GA"

A bot has added class=GA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a good article. If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, BOT Giggabot (talk) 04:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)