Word: bitefuls
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Ever since the wily serpent urged Eve to take that fateful bite out of the apple, snakes have been on just about everybody's enemies list. In the Old West, calling someone a "rattlesnake" or "snake in the grass" could get you shot. Even newborn monkeys recoil instantly when shown the image of a snake. Is there anyone who has something good to say about the creatures...
...went out of his way to avoid stepping on bugs, didn't hesitate to shoot the beings whose distinguishing characteristics are a slithering gait, a forked tongue and hypodermic-needle fangs that can (if they belong to Australia's cobra-like inland taipan) deliver enough venom in a single bite to kill 200,000 mice...
...result in death. The majority of victims, says Greene, who has been nailed only once ("not seriously" by a copperhead as a teen), are "macho types"--young men who handle venomous snakes carelessly. "Snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them," he insists. "They'll only bite if they perceive a threat." Of course, you'd expect to hear that from an ophidiophilic scientist whose E-mail handle is crotalus, the genus name for rattlers...
Levine recalled seeing birds and fish amidst the burgeoning shelves of Woolworth or grabbing a quick bite to eat at the sit-down lunch counter, which closed...
...cause of this destruction was kala-azar (scientifically known as visceral leishmaniasis), a deadly disease caused by a parasitic protozoan. The disease is transmitted by the bite of a sand fly that is about one-tenth of an inch long and is ubiquitous in certain woodlands. Once inside the body, the kala-azar protozoan invades and weakens the immune system, causing fever, weight loss, anemia and enlargement of the spleen. If the disease is untreated, a secondary infection, such as pneumonia or malaria, usually brings painful death...