Jeff Leibowitz is known for making social media videos of himself handling venomous snakes without any protection for himself.
A South Carolina school teacher who is known on social media for free handling venomous snakes was bitten September 6 by an inland taipan snake (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) and is in the intensive care unit of a hospital. Jeff Leibowitz is known for making social media videos of himself handling venomous snakes without any protection for himself. Leibowitz posted a video of himself handling the inland taipan and claiming how he can control the snake’s movement.“I can control his turn,” Leibowitz said in the video. “There’s no need to be so scared of him.”
Unfortunately, he was later bitten by the snake.
University of Queensland Australia Associate Professor Bryan Fry weighed in on the news in a Facebook post of his own. Fry’s Ph.D research was on the evolution of taipan venoms.
“Taipan envenomations are incredibly dangerous and just about the worst thing to be bitten by, Fry wrote on his Facebook page. “That is because taipans are specialists upon very dangerous prey animals such as long-haired rats. Mammals quite capable of severely injuring or even killing a snake predator. So they have evolved strategies to absolutely nuke their very dangerous prey. Giving it no chance of retaliating.”
Leibowitz made a post on the Venomous Snakes Classfieds Facebook page asking anyone who has antivenin for the inland taipan snake to contact the McLeod Hospital in Florence, SC 843-777-2099. His collection of venomous snakes were apparently seized and euthanized.
Inland Taipan Snake Information
The inland taipan, considered one of the most venomous snakes based on the median lethal dose value in mice, is native to western NSW, south eastern Australia and the Northern Territory. It is said that a single drop of the snake’s venom can kill 45 adult men or 250,000 mice. In spite of this, no humans have been recorded to have died from this snake’s bite.
