Snakes

02-12-23 00 / episode: 320

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How do you feel in the movies when you're watching the movie and then suddenly there's a great big screen full of a snake moving around? I know this makes a lot of people squirm and want to leave the room. On the other hand for me I don't feel anything at all. don't get this fear and hate of snakes that some people have but I'm sure they don't understand me either.

Introduction

Hi and welcome to the Les Perras podcast episode 320. These podcasts are an excellent source of extensive English listening and you can really improve your vocabulary by listening to these podcasts regularly. Today's podcast topic is snakes.

Hate them

Lots and lots of people hate snakes. The snake comes on the scene and they want to close your eyes or leave the room. This hatred of snakes is deep-rooted and you can even find it in the Bible, in the first book Genesis where the snake convinces Eve to eat the apple. So snakes are a source of evil for a lot of people.

Love them

On the other hand there are people who love snakes, they keep them as pets, they raise them, and generally enjoy snakes. I personally don't have a snake as a pet but I think they're really cool. When I pick up a snake, especially on a cold day, often the snake will wrap itself close to my body. I know this snake is just trying to get my body heat but it's very easy to get a feeling of affection from this creature. Now that's another strange thing, I found the snakes in Canada to be friendly. But the snakes here in Japan are generally not friendly at all and really don't like being picked up. When I was in Thailand I was able to pick up some of the snakes, and they were pretty friendly over there too. I guess you could say I love snakes.

Where are they

The places that you can find snakes are so numerous that I can't even begin here. In fact the question where are snakes is a silly question. A better question is where aren't snakes. We can't find snakes in Ireland, or Iceland or Greenland, and not in Hawaii either. You can't find snakes in New Zealand. Then there's a lot of small islands in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that don't have snakes. I made that list sound pretty big but in fact that's a really small list compared to the number of places that do have snakes. So let's say you can find snakes just about everywhere

Poisonous

One of the nasty things about snakes is that many of them are poisonous. Some of them are extremely poisonous. There's always the famous cobra snake. Then there's vipers and mambas and boom slangs, and many many more. I think the coolest snake is the cobra because of the image that I have of snake charmers trying to play their pipe and charm the snake. Funny thing about these poisonous snakes is as dangerous as they are, they're also a source of a cure to their own poisonous venom, which leads us to our next subtopic

Antivenom farms

You can take the venom from the snakes and use it to make an anti-venom serum which indeed works and saves lives and has saved lives. One of the famous places where they make these is in Australia. They have a number of extremely poisonous snakes and they milk the snakes to get their poison everyday. They use that poison to make Antivenoms. They usually use horses or sheep to make anti-venoms. They gradually give them more and more of the poison over time, and these animals produce antibodies which are very powerful and we can then use those antibodies to form the antivenom. You have to give the anti-venom to the victim with a needle, but at that point they will be so glad to have that needle, because it's going to save their life. If you like listening to English for your extensive English listening then hit the Subscribe button below so you can get more of my podcasts. I’d love it if you made a comment below, too. Tell me if you have a secret black pepper recipe.