Red on Yellow, Kill a fellow! Think again!

[DragonsEye]

Nice read. Not terribly surprising though -- many cases of regional situations/conditions not being applicable to other regions. Take for example, pupil shape. In North America, at least, a snake with a round pupil will be fairly harmless with regards to venom -- like hognose snakes -- but in the majority of cases, lacking venom entirely. The coral snake is a major exception, but it advertises its venomous state blatantly. However, that is certainly NOT a safe "rule of thumb" to apply in many other countries were elapids are common. For that matter, look at tomatoes. The Spaniards who first came across tomatoes assumed they must be poisonous because they were red. That was a common rule of thumb for the berries they were used to.

[mistersprinkles]

Originally Posted by DragonsEye

Nice read. Not terribly surprising though -- many cases of regional situations/conditions not being applicable to other regions. Take for example, pupil shape. In North America, at least, a snake with a round pupil will be fairly harmless with regards to venom -- like hognose snakes -- but in the majority of cases, lacking venom entirely. The coral snake is a major exception, but it advertises its venomous state blatantly. However, that is certainly NOT a safe "rule of thumb" to apply in many other countries were elapids are common. For that matter, look at tomatoes. The Spaniards who first came across tomatoes assumed they must be poisonous because they were red. That was a common rule of thumb for the berries they were used to.

The tomato thing was the Italians. The Spanish were too busy being invaded by the Moors.