While I was on vacation in North Carolina, I stopped in to the Cape Fear Serpentarium in Wilmington.

Boy, howdy, is that a cool museum! It's cases and cases of mostly venomous snakes, each one ranked according to a 1 to 5 skull-and-crossbones ranking system. (How come no labels I write ever have need of such a key?) And the labels make no pretense of saying things like, "The snakes want nothing more than to exist alongside humans, and they bite only if severely provoked..." No, indeed. Instead, the labels often recount stories of the death-defying bites suffered by the Serpentarium's snake wrangler Dean Ripa and explain in excruciating detail exactly how you will die if bitten by the occupant of the cage in front of you.

Wendy Brenner wrote a long piece about the Serpentarium and Dean Ripa ("Love and Death in the Cape Fear Serpentarium: Some Passions Are More Dangerous Than Others") for the Oxford American magazine. Brenner, too, was impressed with the labels:

"I learn that the Egyptian cobra, whose festive yellow and black stripes evoke Charlie Brown’s shirt, is believed to be the asp that killed Cleopatra; in ancient Egypt, the sign reads, these snakes were awarded to royal prisoners as a means of suicide. The Asiatic spitting cobras, meanwhile, which never seem to run out of venom, are like a 'SORT OF ENDLESS POISONOUS SQUIRT GUN.' The bite of the Central American fer-de-lance feels like having your hand slammed in a car door and then seared with a blow torch. As the placard helpfully elaborates, 'THE BITTEN EXTREMITY SWELLS TO MASSIVE PROPORTIONS, THE SKIN BURSTS OPEN, AND YOUR EYES WEEP BLOOD.'"

(capitalization Brenner's, not mine)

Incidentally, Ripa calls himself "the most bushmaster-bitten man alive." ("The bushmaster is very venomous, and 80% of people bitten die. I've been bitten 4 times.") But really, the only way to do the man's place justice is to pay it a visit.

If you want pictures, my five-year-old took about 80. Unfortunately, she didn't get a photo of the label (repeated a few times throughout the place) that shows graphic pictures of snakebites, the results of snakebites, and failed treatments for snakebites. (Oh, someone helpfully posted one on Flickr. VERY GRAPHIC!) Having looked at those, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I will never, ever put snake venom on my face. I will wrinkle up like a raisin first--it can hardly be worse.

The snakes are really pretty, though.

Wow that's awsome!
Idid'nt know that a taipan is more venimouse than a cobra.