| These snakes are quick-tempered and strike readily, which, combined with a virulent haemotoxic venom, makes them very dangerous, despite their small size. Bites from Echis species probably result in more deaths than from any other species. It is probably the world's deadliest snake, based on documented deaths, especially in Sri Lanka where deaths of nearly fifty people per million from snakebite occur there each year, many bleeding uncontrollably to their death when bitten due to the anticoagulant nature of certain peptides within the venom |
