Snakes

Will eating a leaf with chlorophyll provide relief to a person bitten by a venomous snake? No, that's not true: A board-certified emergency medicine toxicologist specializing in herpetology and envenomation (exposure to poison from a bite or sting) treatment told Lead Stories, "Chlorophyll does not neutralize snake venom." A botany expert also told Lead Stories there is "no scientific basis…

Do COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and treatments for the virus come from snake venom and do the vaccines then cause humans to produce venom in their bodies? In addition, is nicotine the "perfect antidote" for COVID, making the vaccines unnecessary? No, none of those things are true: These assertions have no basis in science, infectious disease experts told Lead Stories. The…

Is a "deadly Eastern diamond rattlesnake" actually being found in several locations across the United States that are not known as native habitats for these snakes? No, that's not true: Social media posts that make the claim are repurposing similarly worded posts to carry out a "bait and switch" scam. Social media accounts will make alarming, sensational posts that draw…

The celebrity death hoax has long been a clickbait staple, but recently one network has taken it to extremes, using scores of websites to host its content and an automated army of bots to push the links into Facebook groups. Many Facebook users and group administrators have noticed a sharp increase in spam postings of false death hoaxes. Examples of…

Did "Mr K Brendon" kill his wife's cat and go missing from his home, causing the police to issue a public warning to be on the lookout for this "very dangerous" man? No, that's not true: The post is designed to trick people to urgently share it from a local online group where it was posted. Commenting is turned off…

Rather than a virus, is COVID-19 instead snake venom being used to poison people or turn them into satanic hybrids? No, that's not true: The claim is part of an elaborate conspiracy theory packed into an anti-vaccine documentary filled with falsehoods, scare tactics and religious imagery that takes viewers from the Garden of Eden to modern times. The virus that…

Do mother rattlesnakes get more aggressive in the spring when their young feed from them? No, that's not true: Baby snakes don't feed from their mother because they are not mammals. Snakes are reptiles and reptiles do not nurse. Newborn rattlesnakes are born with fangs and feed on lizards, not milk, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The claim appeared in…

Did a wild and endangered orangutan offer a helping hand to a geologist who had fallen in a mud pool while searching for the animal? No, that's not an accurate description of the scene captured in this photograph. The man in the water, Syahrul, is an employee of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. The orangutan, a 25-year-old female known as…

Did a "rattle head" snake bite a child in the summer of 2021? No, that's not true: This claim is missing context, as the photo with a post seeking prayers is from a 2019 news account of a 2-year-old South Carolina child who was bitten by a copperhead and survived after hospital treatment. The claim appeared in a Facebook post…

Did a woman's husband break her foot with a baseball bat when he saw what he thought was a snake come out from under the blanket? No, that's not true: These two photos are not related. The photo of a bandaged foot was published in a medical article in 2016; the injured was a man who dropped a cutter on…