Creature Design Post: Poison Running Through My Veins.

First off, I apologize for updating this less frequently. The biggest factor, by far, is my own moving away from my old e-mail account, and therefore my Blogger. It's not like my interest in life has been demolished, I've just been lazy about switching accounts. There were also a lot of trips in September! 

I've also been thinking about a new type of article. See, this blog started with the intent of being inspiration food. I'm a huge fan of creature designs, to the the point where they tend to overwhelm other parts of my work. I love monsters, especially ones that a) eat people and b) derive from nature. The way I see it, I may as well tell the world more about what I like using examples from both nature and other media. I want to inspire people using everything nature and art has to offer. 

In particular, I love animals that use poison! Goodness knows why, but I find it a very interesting, unique bioweapon. It's usually a "big things come in small packages" deal that sometimes even looks cool. Thus, it kinda cheeses me off when people just palette swap a creature and say one color is poisonous without taking in other structural ideas. 

So, without further ado…three tips for designing your own toxic beasts!

If this thing was a Pokemon, I'd catch the hell out of it. And it's invasive, so that would be okay. 

1. Picking Your Poison. 

Or, if you prefer, "the nitty-gritty details- how and why?"  

I apologize for starting with something so boring. However, it is a rather important part of why certain animals have poison while others do not, and help you, as a designer, gauge how poisonous a creature should be. Aside from the aesthetic of a poisonous thing, why something is poisonous should be the first things you think about. 

The truth is, that's how you have to think of poison. A toxin is not a horn or claw. It's not visually appealing in and of itself. Whereas one can easily brush off a horn as, say, a mating display, one cannot do that for poison. Poison has to have a bigger point than that. 

So, why does your thing have poison? Is it hunting prey, or just defending itself? While poison's a pretty versatile weapon, this will affect your design. The rule of thumb is that venomous creatures use their poison to hunt, while poisonous creatures use it as a defense. What kind of animal are you making?

Nobody ever suspects...the BUTTERFLY!

Probably the most classic poisonous animal to pick on is the monarch butterfly. The caterpillar of the monarch butterfly eats milkweed, a mildly toxic plant. By doing so, the caterpillar itself becomes bad-tasting, and birds learn to avoid them from that point on. The butterflies are likewise poisonous, and the circle of life continues when they pollinate the poisonous milkweed. A lot of prey animals do this - even the notorious poison dart frogs, which eat toxic beetles to make themselves toxic. Very, very toxic, in fact.

Venomous creatures are another can of worms. A venomous creature is usually a slower predator, often of the ambush variety, that naturally makes its own toxins. It is usually well-camouflaged, sporting a swift strike. This thing is definitely poisoning to kill, meaning that one strike should hurt a lot. Bad taste won't cut it, even if it is still considered toxic. Venomous creatures like our lionfish (from the start of the article) are both predator and prey, thus the vibrant markings. 

Why things do not have poison is just as important as why things do have poison. For example…ever wonder why there are so few poisonous mammals known to science?

Put bluntly: they don't need it. Why invest in poison when you have massive teeth, claws, hooves, or long legs? Mind, there are a few oddball mammals that still have poison, but there's a reason that they are exceptions rather than the rule. For example, a toxic lion would be redundant; one, they aren't prey for anything, two, cats kill with a death-bite to the neck. 

Here are a few reasons why something might evolve poison: it's slow; it's small; it doesn't have sharp claws, wings, or horns to defend itself. The vast majority of poisonous mammals are shrews, i.e. small furry things, or shrew-like solenodons; in a remarkable display of sadism for such small creatures, shrews use venom to render prey comatose while they cache it for winter. Solenodons have it because they are the closest mammalian things to reptiles after monotremes, and simply saw no need to evolve out of their toxic fangs.

Solenodons are weird, by the way. T-Rex would have seen this guy! 

Most mammals have claws, fangs, or massive size that they can use to their advantage. They don't need to slowly weaken things. They don't even need toxic skin to defend themselves. It's the smaller, slower, more vulnerable animals that are more likely to have poison. If you can't cause a lot of damage or run like the wind already, you might just be a good candidate for toxins.

And then, oh, the plethora of toxins out there. There are toxins that paralyze, toxins that cause internal bleeding, toxins that attack muscle, and that's just naming a few. It's not simple to create an antidote for every venom out there, just because of the variety. I could stress again and again that these things tend to be tiny, yet potent, so whichever route you design best be worth it. 

Of course, when you're making man-eaters, tiny is not an option. Slow is also usually a pretty bad idea, but toxins can still compensate like they do in nature.  Monster Hunter has my eternal respect for having several very well-designed poisonous beasts in a number of regards. My personal favorites of MH 3 Ultimate, Lucent Nargacuga and Gigginox, are both venomous, but Gigginox is a real gem. It's slow, blind, breeds more than rabbits, and flings poison lugies at you. Perhaps size aside, it's one of the best-designed toxic creatures ever!

Or you could just go, "here's a thing, here's that thing again, only purple. The purple one is poisonous." Ah, recolors - the bane of my existence in cases like this. 

2. It's All in the Delivery. 

Here's another bugger concerning poisonous critters: how do you get your poison in? 

The evolution of venom in snakes is a long and hole-filled one. We do not know when or how lizards went from having four legs to none, whether it was related to water or earth, or if those lizards were poisonous. We also don't know how certain lizards evolved poison, or if any snakes can truly, 100% be called "nonvenomous." Science is still split on the Komodo dragon, but poison or bacteria, a bite from that thing is deadly. 

What we do know, however, is that the poison glands in snakes evolved long before they had the fangs to properly inject the stuff. Duvernoy's gland, the sac that produces venom, is found in seemingly harmless colubrids. There are also snakes dubbed "rear-fanged venomous." 

Yes. Let's talk about those for a bit.

Rattler left, cobra right. 

If one looks at the skull of a rattlesnake or cobra, one will notice two very obvious things: one, the skulls have very different styles of fangs, meaning that the images of cobras with massive fangs are really a load of BS; two, despite the differences between the fangs, they are both situated towards the front of the mouth. This only makes sense; after all, where better to put a weapon for injecting poison into prey? 

The venom-injecting fang did not start there. Evolution is an awkward mistress who tends to make a ton of mistakes before getting it right. The injection fang was situated towards the eye, closer to the gland, before the efficient venomous snakes we know today. These snakes still have and make poison, but can't get it into a squirming, potentially biting, kicking prey item.

The boomslang - embarrassingly known better as a Harry Potter potions class ingredient than a snake that can kill you by opening its mouth 180 degrees. 

This says nothing about how lethal the poison is, just that it's harder to get into a nice, warm rodent. Pretty crazy tricks have to be done just to get the point across (ha ha) if the machinery isn't there. The boomslang is one of the more noteworthy rear-fanged venomous snakes out there, but it doesn't have the huge fangs of a rattler, or even the fixed fangs of a cobra at the front of the mouth. It has three fangs for injecting venom, located right beneath Duvernoy's gland. It can almost open its jaws in a straight line in order to deliver its lethal bite; most rear-fanged snakes are not so lucky, and have to chew their venom into their prey to get it in at all. 

This is, of course, largely concerning venom. When you're poisoning something to kill it, of course you want the most efficient delivery system possible. If the poison is defensive, however, chances are a predator will be doing half of your work for you - usually touching the skin. Both the pufferfish and poison dart frog varieties have this right, with the pufferfish sporting death needles and dart frogs having a coating so poisonous that merely touching it causes at least a tingle."Your mouth is on my skin- sucks to be you" is very different from sticking fangs into an unsuspecting mouse. Needles, spurs, and toxic coatings are all cool ways to go about it. Delivery isn't as big a problem when the pred's doing your work for you. 

Point is, it doesn't matter how nasty your poison is if you can't get it in. It's like putting medicine in a bottle you can't open. In nature, there are no "much stronger people" who will open that bottle for you, so best make sure you can open it yourself. 

3. Acid Trip! 

Poisonous things can be among the most gorgeous beasts in the animal kingdom! A lot of poisonous (not always venomous) animals are very colorful as a warning, even though most of nature sees in black and white. Poison dart frogs are a classic example of this. Really, this guy blends in exactly nowhere:

The Frog Formerly Known As Azureus. He was never a Prince. 

Dart frogs aside, nature has another warning method: stripes. There's a trinity of red, yellow, and black that can be found on a lot of poisonous animals, including coral snakes and wasps. One could even add skunks to the "stripy and kind of bad for you" pile. Even to black and white vision, the stripy pattern stands out. The fancy term is "aposematic coloration" for the things that just taste bad.

Then there are the posers. 

For every genuinely toxic animal, there is at least one mimic- not usually venomous or poisonous, but darn if they don't dress the part. Coral snakes copy a far less deadly species (they're prey, too, remember?), but kingsnakes and milksnakes are known for mimicking the lethal coral snakes. ("Red next to yellow will kill a fellow, red next to black is a friend of Jack" stops once you cross the southern U.S. border, by the way.)  There are several very good bee mimics, including the hummingbird moth. The mimic octopus steals from everybody, making anything else trying to copy a venomous creature a futile cosplay attempt by comparison:

(I'm poisonous! Really! I am ALL AND EVERY POISONOUS YOU WILL EVER KNOOOWWW!) 

There is a visual aspect to poison, it just isn't necessarily purple. If anything, poison's colors are red, yellow, and black. RPG's have lied to you!

In conclusion...

...I hate palette swaps. And bad design that doesn't give a flip about how poison works in nature, or how to properly portray it aside from the color purple, but mostly, I don't like how people arbitrarily add poison onto anything without thinking about it. Pokemon and MonHunt have you beat already. There are a ton of creative ways to use poison. 

Killer Cute: Hooded Pitohui.

Ah, spring is in the air! Flowers are blooming, the air is warm, and songbirds fill the air with music. What could possibly be more representative of spring than a brightly-colored songbird?

...a brightly-colored, poisonous songbird?!

This colorful little bird is a hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichorus). It is native to all places called "New Guinea," and quite common there. Both females and males have bright colors, so it's not like we can tell if that's a dude or a chick. Yes, that pun was intended; it's Easter.

And, yes, the songbird is poisonous. The hooded pitohui was one of the first documented poisonous birds, and is frequently touted as the most poisonous.

How does a songbird become poisonous? By eating lots and lots of poisonous beetles. The process is called bioaccumulation, and is roughly the same method by which DDT accumulated in various bird species during the 60's - only, well, more beneficial. It's virtually the same way that lorises and monarch butterflies become toxic.

This bird is going to KILL you.

The resulting poison works like a charm. It is a neurotoxin called homobatrachotoxin, and can be found in most places in or on the bird's body. Merely touching this bird causes tingling and numbness (nerve tampering). Imagine what eating this bird could do. No wonder they're labelled as "least concern."

Need more of a trip? These beetles are related to the same bugs that poison dart frogs (i.e. the little froggies so lethal that natives dip arrows in their poison) eat. The pitohui is a bird who thinks it's a poison dart frog. You thought you knew songbirds? Don't trust those bright colors. They might not be for mating.

Creature (...plant) Feature: Datura.

Zombies are everywhere these days. Possibly due to the whole "2012" thing, the zombie has become one of the most popular movie monsters of the modern era. They are generally characterized as being hard to kill (for good), having an infectious bite, and, most importantly, craving human brains.

Usually, some sort of virus is to blame for a zombie apocalypse, although there are a few other possibilities. The most popular virus is the Solanum Virus, a fictional virus made by Max Brooks that a million people still think is real. There are a number of reasons to call it BS, the first being that, if zombies take over, it'll more likely be due to a prion or parasite than a virus (because when was the last time you felt like eating brains from a flu or cold? Mad cow seems a TINY bit more likely to cause zombies; beware the burgers).

Clearly poison.

 Truth is stranger than fiction, in this case.  The Solanum Virus is named after the family containing the plant genus Datura, a type of plant used in zombie creation rites on the island of Haiti. Yes, zombies are Caribbean monsters, and yes, Disney is taking advantage of this fact.

Datura poison was part of a zombie-making concoction in Wade Davis's documentary, The Serpent and the Rainbow. Like many authors, he complained about numerous inaccuracies when his book was made into a movie. He was not a nerd behind a computer - he was an ethnobotanist, someone who studies how people interact with plants.  Get it right.


Come to think of it, this DOES look kinda creepy.

Despite some severe scientific criticisms, Davis insisted that a Haitian man named Clairvius Narcisse was turned into a living zombie via two separate, deadly powders that induced a deathlike state. The first included tetrodotoxin, the poison that makes fugu risky; the second, datura, among other dissociative drugs. By using these drugs, a Haitian sorcerer called a bokor could get a 'living corpse' to do their bidding. People subjected to these drugs only thought they were dead; after being bombarded with this poison cocktail, they were buried and reeducated into zombiehood. One can only presume that the training consisted of "go fetch me a double tall mocha latte," among other mind-numbing orders.


Would you like brains with that?

Datura plants are closely related to nightshade and a number of other major agricultural crops, such as  tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. All of the above are at least slightly poisonous if picked at the wrong time. Datura is also very widely cultivated, giving no hints as to where it actually came from. The name is Hindi, meaning, rather generically, "plant." Such a demure name belies exactly what Datura can do.

Every single plant in the genus Datura has toxins powerful enough to send one to the hospital. Datura is the suicide poison of choice for over 2,000 people...and that's just in India. Its ability to kill is only the tip of the iceberg; other symptoms include delirium, the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality, an increased heart rate, photophobia (a fear of light), hyperthermia, and, much of the time, amnesia. Before you buy some, ask the seller if he remembers what happened last night. He likely will not.

Nobody really knows whether Davis's Datura and fugu combo works or not. Datura has a mighty fine history of driving people crazy; a particular variety called "Jimson Weed" (or "Jamestown Weed" if you are wondering where to find it) was used to drug British soldiers during Bacon's Rebellion. It drove them batshit insane. Careful what your boss gives you at your next physical; we cannot think of a corporation around that would not want a zombie slave. Watch out.

Tomorrow: Just what the hell is a prion, anyways? 

Creature Feature: Cerastes.

So I went to the reptile store yesterday. A young lady was there with her boyfriend; she was one of those people that was scared of snakes, even if they looked like cotton candy. I can't really pinpoint what freaks people out about them; it could be the way they move, that a good chunk of them are poisonous, their forked tongues, or that, in Western culture, they are pretty much cemented as avatars of Satan. Do snakes really need any more fodder to be considered "evil?"

Apparently, yes:

HAIL SATAN!

No, somebody did not just go in there and PhotoShop horns on. The whole genus Cerastes (as well as Pseudocerastes) sports small, devilish horns above its eyes. The horns of Cerastes are really just one scale; Pseudocerastes horns contain many scales. Horned vipers are generally spread across Africa and the Middle East with plenty of mythology to go with the territory. Before you ask, yes, they range all the way into Israel.



The Egyptians used the horned viper as one of their hieroglyphs. The "f" sound as in their word "fy" for viper (which is onomatopoeic of the viper's hissing and scale-rustling) and as a possessive. (Using a snake as a possessive has its own interesting implications.) Every snake was treated as some form of divine manifestation in Egypt, and they had very good records on how to treat snakebite. Desert horned vipers (Cerastes cerastes) were among the animals that they mummified, even though they were also among the most feared snakes in the area. They certainly look the part.



The generic name "cerastes" comes from a horned, spineless serpent in Greek mythology. According to the Greeks (and, later, DaVinci) the serpent possessed either four horns or the horns of a ram. It would lie in the sand with only these horns exposed, tricking other animals into thinking that there were worms poking up from beneath the sand. Then, the flexible snake would strike.

The real snake is far less imposing. Although the horned face, spadelike head, and cat's-eye pupils all look legitimately intimidating, those images are close-ups of a very small snake. The longest member of Cerastes gets less than 3 feet long (less than a mater for metric people). These are not roaring dragons from the bowels of Hell; they are small, secretive ambush predators that only have a chance of killing you.

Cerastes sounds like one of the better beginner hots. When asked about how potent the Sahara Sand Viper's venom was, a user called Viperkeeper on YouTube responded "ruin your week.""Ruin your week" is a LOT better than "ruin your life," which is what most other venomous snakes will do to you. (I do not condone handling ANY venomous snakes. Hooks, not hands!) Most of the symptoms of horned viper bites involve the circulatory system, including the rather nasty side-effect of urinating some red blood cells. Again, this is not considered lethal; a rattlesnake bite is much worse. Venom aside, desert animals are usually very easy to keep, and horned vipers are no exception.

Plus, they've made awesome monsters for centuries. Prince of Persia recently had a few 'trained' horned vipers. Snakes do not do that; they have no social structure to speak of, do not come when called, and certainly will not swallow knives for their masters. Don't try it at home, kids!

Creature Feature: Gaboon Viper.

So, I just got back from seeing Deathly Hallows (Part 1). Nagini's a reticulated python (P. reticulatus). Always cool to see those; they are gorgeous snakes and I wish I could handle one. (Could've sworn Nagini was a Burm in one of the previous movies). Retics are beautiful, but a bit harder to work with than Burmese pythons.

There are some species of snake that barely get any spotlight. Despite sporting not only the longest fangs in the snake world as well as well as being the heaviest viper, the Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica) is one of them. (As you can probably guess if you know your geography, it is native to Africa.) It is closely related to rhinoceros vipers.



First off, the name "rhinoceros" says "this thing should be badass." The Gabby and a few of its close relatives sport little horns on their noses. They are also amazingly beautiful snakes if you can pick them out from beneath the dead leaves.



These snakes sport the longest fangs in the whole world. Those cobras you see with huge fangs are fake, fake, fake; even the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) has short fangs like every other elapid. Sorry, just getting that off my chest.

True vipers are the real masters of the fang world, and the Gabby is no exception. Its fangs are 55 millimeters/2.2 inches long...which is long for teeth. It is also long for venom-filled syringes that will poke through the flesh of your hand like butter if you are not careful.

Gabbies are also docile as puppies. Seriously, people have picked up these huge, poisonous snakes with their bare hands and have been able to handle them without ever getting bitten. This is a huge gamble; one bad mood and those two-inch fangs will be in your hand. You will not be able to react faster than the snake, which is known for being quick and unpredictable. Expert hot keepers have said things along the lines of, "I would rather tail a mamba (read: the fastest snake on record) than deal with a Gabby" and "a cobra makes a better first hot."

 
But it looks so derpy and cute here...

These are the people successful enough to afford antivenins and pure white cobras. I would listen to them.

Week of the Triffids: Doll's Eyes

If that title alone did not send shivers up your spine, you have never seen Chuckie. Or Rozen Maiden. Or...anything involving killer dolls, really. The plant is much creepier than either of those regardless:


Chuckie has nothing on this.

Doll's Eyes (Actaea pachypoda) are native to the Eastern United States and Canada. One can only assume that the settlers immediately thought that they were manifestations of Satan and proceeded to hover crosses over these plants. They are related to wolfsbane and monkshood.


(I have seen these IRL; they ARE kinda creepy, even if they're not in full color. This is the freakiest thing you will EVER see in IL.)

True to the red-yellow/white-black trinity, Doll's Eyes are highly poisonous to mammals, including humans and rabbits. Specifically, they contain cardiotoxins - toxins that attack the heart. Eating these berries is like getting hit by the Death Note.


Yeah, those berries look more like shinigami food to me.

Despite its toxicity, it has been used by native Canadians to calm menstrual periods (if you do not know what that is, good for you) and as a medicine after childbirth. Yes, it sucks that much to be a chick sometimes.

The creepiest thing about it, in this author's opinion, is that those berries DO look a lot like eyes. Although poisonous to humans, the berries are not toxic to the birds that help disperse the plant's seeds. If the berries look like eyes, and birds know to look for those berries...what is keeping them from eating human eyes on a regular basis?