Delivering the venom also requires a lot of equipment. After all, a rattlesnake produces not one venom but a cocktail of them the cocktail in another snake will be profoundly different. That’s not to say that the venomous life is a simple one. That means that scientists can compare venoms gene by gene to see how they’re related to each other. Their success may have something to do with the fact that each type of venom is encoded by a single gene. But scientists have made exceptional progress in figuring out the origins of venom. The origin of new adaptations is one of the most fascinating parts of evolution–from hands to feathers to eyes. First there were animals without venom, and then there were.

And that means that venom has independently evolved many times over in the history of life. The platypus is much more closely related to us, for example, than it is to a centipede. Venomous animals are not all closely related to each other. Depending on its exact target in the body, venom will paralyze nerves, rot muscles, and stop blood from clotting. The molecules are intricately complex, with shapes that allow them to precisely lock onto certain proteins on our own cells. All these animals produce molecules that attack a victim in minutes or even seconds. It includes vipers, jellyfish, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, bees, cone snails, newts, platypus, and even a primate.

Venom is the mark of a special club, a select subset of the animal kingdom.

Neither is the squirrel on the sidewalk, the bullfrog in the pond, or the dragonfly floating by your window. Your spit, while unpleasant, cannot kill.

Venom comixology