Great moments in pedantry: Poisonous vs. Venomous

The key difference, writes blogger Jason Bittel, is in the biting. Venomous animals internally create a toxin and then inject it into prey or foes. Poisonous animals usually secrete their toxins on the outside.

So here's a rule of thumb: If you are dying because an animal has bitten you, chances are, it was a venomous animal. If you're dying because you touched an animal or (foolishly) put it in your mouth, that's poisonous.

And then, of course, there's the slow loris:

Because the loris manufactures toxin from specialized glands on its elbows, then transfers that liquid to small, curved teeth for injection, the loris is venomous. Alternately, mother lorises cover their offspring’s fur in the same potion, rendering them poisonous.

Read more about various poisonous and venomous animals at Jason Bittel's blog, Bittel Me This.

Image: Natural History Museum - London, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from nickstone333's photostream

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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arcfinn

Never heard of a loris before, in fact I don’t think I’ve heard of any venomous or poisonous mammals before.
- Ryan_T_H
  
  Platypus are venomous
  - Pedantic Douchebag
    
    Thank you for not using “platypi”.
    - ImmutableMichael
      
      Although that is the correct term for 3.14 platypus . *rimshot* *silence*
    - Wreckrob8
      
      Antipodean platypodes?
  - arcfinn
    
    True, but they are mammals of the oddest sort.
- Palomino
  
  I love the internet! Wikipedia has a great definition: Venom = hunting , poison = don’t eat. Venom is intentional, however something may be poison for some, not all, to eat. But there’s exceptions to that too.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venomous_mammals
  
  SOME, NOT ALL:
  
  Venomous
  -Shrew
  -Mole
  -Platypus
  
  Venomous/Poisonous
  -Loris
  -Hedgehog
  
  Poisonous
  -The most unique, the African Crested Rat, eats poisonous bark then applies the mixture to a part of it’s fur that’s designed to soak up the poison.
  - Ipo
    
    Platipus don’t use their poison/venom – toxin for hunting, breaking that rule.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Rulon-Miller/1029409265 Bill Rulon-Miller
    
    Loris are venomous; hedgehogs do not produce their own toxins but take it from toads that they prey on and are thus poisonous.
    
    Now you know.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Never heard of a loris before
  
  You are clearly not spending enough time at I Can Haz Cheezburger or Daily Squee.
- Jerril
  
  Shrews are venomous as well.
http://twitter.com/snakenuts Alex Crouzen

Now, if I touched or ate an animal, I am ‘poisoned’, but what if I got bitten, what am I then? ‘Venomised’? Is there an adjective for that?
- Glen Able
  
  envenomated
  - Philbert
    
    Envenomatorized
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    You really want to try to get yourself bitten by creatures in whom envenomation is voluntary. Nothing says relief like a dry bite.
    
    Also, odd that this doesn’t mention stings, which account for many, if not most, envenomations.
- http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/5OQFBZ26C3VQ5ONGZGDBDY4BUU Mark A
  
  Fucked.
  - Wreckrob8
    
    Well fucked, mate!
  - noah django
    
    agree in spirit, but something tells me if you ran into an ER exclaiming “I’ve been fucked by a slow loris!” you might get sent to the psych ward rather than the poison ward.
wibbled_pig

Boy, I bet that slow loris can drop some *brutal* elbow bombs..
- http://twitter.com/CanYouGetToThat Dane J
  
  The Jungle’s own Randy Savage.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=696968610 Cori Frazer-Hopkinson

I know Wikipedia isn’t always right, but it purports that the reaction to loris “poison” is actually an allergic reaction and the animal doesn’t actually produce poison/venom. Anyone know for sure?
- http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke
  
  I think if the vile crap needs specialized glands its poison or toxin, otherwise (like the Komodo Dragon IFAIK) it’s just vile crap that harms/kills you.
  - Beanolini
    
    like the Komodo Dragon IFAIK
    
    Komodo dragons do have venom glands, apparently, though there is some disagreement over how much effect this actually has on their prey.
- Jerril
  
  A venom that kills you by directly attacking your tissues and a venom that kills you by getting your own body to attack your tissues are separated only by level of fanciness in the design.
  
  The reaction to “poison” oak and ivy is also immune-system based, but it’s still a defensive chemical.
  
  People who are actually allergic to lorises (and that includes most people alergic to cats) suffer from a distance and from airborn particles. Most humans only suffer from contact.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Is this pedantry? Or instead just knowing what words mean?
- http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi
  
  Stop being a pedant!
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  like poison, it all depends on delivery.
- http://twitter.com/opticalens Mike Perkowitz
  
  pedantry is in the eye of the beholder
Just_Ok

Loris ipsum periculosum
- Robert
  
  et commentator ridiculosum
pizzicato

It is the poisonous arm pit glands not elbow…
theophrastvs

sometimes Latin ain’t yer friend:

Sola dosis facit venenum

translated for time immemorial as: “The dose makes the poison”
(“venenum”? “poison”?)
- Wreckrob8
  
  There is a term for that ‘false friends’. See, we’re all friends really.
- GawainLavers
  
  The beauty of English is that we have taken an enormous array of what would otherwise be synonyms from other languages, then assigned shades of meaning to them to differentiate them, e.g. house (haus) vs. mansion (maison).
  - Ipo
    
    Totally correct statement, only your example is not an example at all.
    
    Maison : from Old French maisun, from Latin mansiō (“ abode, home, dwelling”)
    Mansion : from O.Fr. mansion
    
    House/Haus/Hus is what Angles, Saxons and Jutes called their abodes even before they moved to those islands.
    - GawainLavers
      
      That is what I intended my example to mean.
      Maison is French for “abode”.
      Haus is German for “abode”.
      
      Mansion != house in English.
      - Ipo
        
        Yeah, I got what you meant to mean.
        And I liked it.
        
        But the word “Mansion” is an example of French appropriating Latin and English also appropriating Latin.
        House/Haus is an example of a word continuously in use by those that would become the English and those that stayed on the continent.
        The inhabitants of what is now England, and what was part of the Roman imperial province Britannia, already knew the Latin word before the English peoples arrived.
        Why are you mentioning French at all?
        
        Look up what a mansion is.
        The Wikipedia article begins with: “A mansion is a very large dwelling house.”
        
        Maison != mansion in English.
        Was that your point?
        That the French assigned a different meaning to the Latin word than the English did?
      - GawainLavers
        
        http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mansion
        
        mansionmid-14c., “chief residence of a lord,” from O.Fr. mansion “stay, permanent abode, house, habitation, home; mansion; state, situation” (13c.)
  - dragonfrog
    
    I quite like the bit in Ivanhoe about how Saxon animals go to France when they die.
    
    Swine (German Schwein) become pork (French porc)
    Cows and oxen (German Kuh and Ochs) become beef (French boeuf)
    Calves (German Kalb) become veal (French veau)
    Sheep (German Schaff) become mutton (French Mouton)
    - GawainLavers
      
      Yes!
    - Beanolini
      
      Saxon animals go to France when they die
      
      I was taught that during Norman rule in England, French was the language of the nobility, and English the language of the common people- and so French speakers would be unlikely to meet animals except when served as food.
      
      (I have no idea whether this is actually true, or just one of the many urban legends regurgitated by my school teachers).
      - dragonfrog
        
        Yeah, that’s the setup there – the people who get to follow the animals around pastures and shovel their poo are English speaking Saxons, the people who get to eat them once they’ve been conveniently roasted are French speaking Normans.
Palomino

And there’s “allergens” and “toxins”. Are they different or the same? I’ve heard “toxic” used a lot, especially in marine life.

What about “allergic reactions”, those kill too, probably more than poison and venom combined, like asthma. In the United States, 9 people die daily.

My point is, “poison” is very subjective, it’s usually in place of “toxic”, and many things can be “toxic”, like relationships.

I guess the Loris is the Platypus in the poison/venom debate.
- Robert
  
  Don’t forget the mutagens and hallucinogens. And vectors.
  - Palomino
    
    Are there different classes and sub-classes? I’m not a chemist.
    
    I did learn something interesting from a Park Ranger here in Phoenix AZ. Most older venomous snakes DON”T use venom when they strike at things they have no intention of eating, they’re conserving it for food. She said the snake has learned through the years that their strike is enough and venom isn’t needed. It’s the young ones who don’t know better and some die because they don’t have enough venom stored for their next meal.
    
    I don’t know why rattle snakes get such a bad rap, what other creature warns you with audible sounds warning unsuspecting wanderers not to step on them. The snake knows you’re too big to eat, they’re just being courteous. Pretty ingenious.
    - http://www.fatjerry.com Dimmer
      
      So, ask for ID when in a potentially bad situation?
http://redesigned.com redesigned

I don’t know, they look delicious to me!
danegeld

like, duh? Come on BoingBoing, please say that we knew the difference between poisonous and venomous already.
noah django

that loris appears to be tripping. its. ass. off.
http://www.facebook.com/TJOToole Tom O’Toole

If we’re getting into pedantry, the loris doesn’t manufacture poison at all. There was a great BBC nature documentary on loris population and why so many were dying when released into the wild after being bred or rehabilitated in captivity. The findings were that they actually derive the poison from the things it eats (insects IIRC), which they then concentrate in their glands. They also coat their fur with it to deter predators and parasites.

Here’s a link to the BBC page for the documentary:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nflz1