A Date with Spiders & Snakes!

Ava Jane, SCIENCE Reporter

I was playing with Nicola and asked her if she would like to go to

the venom show at the NS Museum of Natural History.

She said yes and we walked over to the Museum for the show at 2:30PM.

The man from the Ottawa Zoo talked first about the Kane Toad which was poisonous but ONLY if you ate it.

If the toad was scared, it would excrete white poisonous bumps that could kill a creature and make a human very sick. These toads use their venom to protect their babies or frighten away predators.

Next was a rattle snake which only uses its venom for emergencies which is true of all venomous creatures.

Finally he brought out something and he said "a lot of people are afraid of this".

(He was right ---it was a tarantula !!)

At the end of the venom demonstration, he said he would let people hold the animals and so he got a volunteer to hold the tarantula so that others wouldn't be afraid to hold it either.

Then was a scorpion and he told us that it has a stinger at the tip of his tail. He got a volunteer to hold the scorpion so that others

would not be afraid of it stinging them.

We were told to keep our hand flat when holding the scorpion or the tarantula.

We all had a turn holding the King Snake, the Tarantula and we touched the beautiful Boa Constrictor. What an exciting time we had!

SNAKES, SPIDERS AND SCORPIONS, venomous all!!!

Just remember this!!! "ALL SNAKES are venomous but not all are poisonous....