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Handling snakes for science

Eletra de Souza’s research aims to help decrease lethal strikes in Brazil.
By
  1. Virginia Gewin

    1. Virginia Gewin is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon.

Eletra de Souza uses a snake hook to handle a specimen of venomous snake in her lab.

Eletra de Souza is a PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Credit: Pablo Albarenga for Nature

I study snakes in Brazil’s Ribeira Valley, an area where snake bites are very common. I focus mainly on the venomous lancehead (Bothrops jararaca), which I am holding here. It is responsible for most of the 26,000 recorded snake bites in Brazil each year.

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Nature 600, 352 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03629-6

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 08 December 2021: An earlier version of this article erroneously named the snake pictured as a juvenile red-tailed boa (Boa constrictor). In fact, the image is of the venomous lancehead (Bothrops jararaca).

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