• Question: do you work with snakes

    Asked by PJ to Michel on 7 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Michel Dugon

      Michel Dugon answered on 7 Nov 2014:

      At the moment, I don’t work with snakes because they require a lot of space and a lot of care. I only have 4 “pet snakes” in my office: 2 California king snakes, 1 corn snake and 1 python. In a small lab, it is easier for me to work with smaller animals: centipedes, spiders, scorpions…
      But I spent many years working with snakes in the past: I was a specialist of venomous snakes from South East Asia. I had a big animal park in Malaysia, and my job was to get snakes in the jungle, breed them, and export them for research projects on their venom. At one point, I had over 300 snakes in my park. I had a lot of vipers (you can google “pope’s viper” to see what my favourite species is), and a lot of cobras too, including king cobras. Very impressive snakes, dangerous job, but it was all very exciting!

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