Dragon Boat Festival to eat five poison cake patterns are which five poison?

When it comes to the Dragon Boat Festival, the first thing that comes to mind may be zongzi, dragon boat and qu Yuan, but according to textual research, Chu, Wu, Yue and other places began to hold ceremonial activities on the fifth day of May in the Spring and Autumn period before qu Yuan. The purpose of most of these activities is to exorcise evil spirits, and we can still see the shadow of these activities: wearing sachet, hanging calamus, burning wormwood, drinking realgar and so on are all means used in ancient times to expel evil.

Dragon Boat Festival is not just a dragon boat race. Picture: David Sun / flickr

In the north of our country, there is also the custom of eating "five poison cakes" on the Dragon Boat Festival. Although this kind of cake is just an ordinary cake covered with five poison patterns or pressed into the image of five poisons, it also well reflects people's desire to "eat" these poisonous worms so that they can no longer poison the world.

In the CCTV "Morning News" column the day before yesterday, there were five poison cakes.

So, what are the "five poisons"? The most common "five poisons" patterns on the five poison cakes are centipedes, snakes, scorpions, toads and geckos. Let's get to know them one by one.

Full text early warning of insect and snake phobia

Attention, this is not a drill.

!!!

centipede

Frequency of occurrence: ★★★☆☆

Risk factor: ★★★☆☆

Scolopendra subspinipes mutilans, also known as Chinese red-headed centipede, is mainly distributed in China and Japan, with an average body length of 20 cm. Picture: wiki commons

Even people who see a centipede for the first time will be startled by its slender, heterogeneous body, and the legend of the centipede's brain-absorbing spirit when we were young should have left a big shadow on our young hearts.

Many feet, I am afraid that the centipede left the deepest impression on people, so the centipede is also known as the "millipede". But generally speaking, centipedes don't usually have that many feet. Take the less-spiny centipede, which is more common in the south of the Yangtze River, for example, fully mature individuals can only see 21 nodes (actually 25, of which the first and last three are very small and insignificant). Centipedes belong to Myriapoda Chilopoda, and each segment has only one pair of feet, so excluding the antennae of the head and the extended tail feet at the tail, there are only 20 pairs of feet, that is, 40.

In the real sense, the "hundred-legged worms" should be the horses who belong to the multi-legged subphylum but belong to the class Diplopoda. They not only have many body segments, but also have two pairs of feet in one section, and the number of feet can easily reach hundreds of pairs.

A slender multi-legged centipede with leaves. Picture: Palmfly / wiki commons

What makes the centipede a poisonous animal is a pair of specialized feet of its first trunk, the jaw foot. The centipede's jaws are sharp and powerful and are connected to the venomous glands. When the centipede hunts, first hold the prey unexpectedly with the first few pairs of feet, then stab the prey with the jaw foot and inject venom. The venom of centipede mainly contains a variety of enzymes, such as phospholipase, protease, hyaluronidase and so on. Among them, phospholipase is thought to cause damage to cell membrane, especially nerve cell membrane, while protease and hyaluronidase can decompose prey tissue.

The ventral side of the Mcgarrah banded centipede (Scolopendra cingulata), pay attention to its jaw foot. Picture: Fritz Geller-Grimm / wiki commons

These venom ingredients are extremely lethal to insects and vertebrates. In nature, centipedes prey on other insects, birds and small mammals, but if bitten by centipedes, subcutaneous hemorrhage, edema, tissue necrosis and even death may occur.

Snake

Frequency of occurrence: ★★☆☆☆

Risk factor: ★

Agkistrodon acutus (Deinagkistrodon acutus), commonly known as five-step snake, seven-step snake, hundred-step snake, Agkistrodon acutus, is a venomous snake of the subfamily Agkistrodon halys. Picture: Sam Martin

Although the traditional "head of the five poisons" is the centipede, in terms of the number of people bitten to death each year, the venomous snake is the king of poison-about 50,000 people around the world are bitten by poisonous snakes every year.

For the entire snake family, the proportion of venomous snakes is about 1 beat 3 to 1 hand 4. Among the more than 200 species of snakes distributed in China, about 50 species are poisonous. The snakes that pose a threat to human beings are mainly concentrated in two categories: Elapidae and Viperidae. The word "snake" in "hu snake" is usually thought to refer to venomous snakes, especially those of the viper family.

Fujian bamboo leaf green of Viperidae. Picture: Evan Pickett / wiki commons

The reason why poisonous snakes are terrible comes from their sharp fangs and deadly venom. Cobra and vipers are the main groups that cause poisoning because they have large fangs and are located at the front of the maxilla and are more likely to pierce their prey when attacking their prey. In contrast, some swimming snakes and sea snakes also have venomous glands, but their fangs are located at the back of the jaw and are not easy to pierce their prey, so the risk is relatively low.

For cobras and vipers, their fangs and ways of using poison are slightly different. In the former, there is a groove behind the fangs to transport venom, so it is called groove teeth, while the venom transport pathway of vipers is closed as pipes, called canal teeth. The venom of cobras contains more substances such as cholinesterase and polypeptides, which can hinder the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles, so it is called neurotoxin, while the venom of vipers adds proteases and hyaluronidase, which can destroy tissue on a large scale and cause hemolysis or coagulation, so it is called blood poison. Of course, this "nerve poison" and "blood poison" is only a rough division, almost all poisonous snakes use these two types of toxins together.

Scorpion

Frequency of occurrence: ★☆☆☆☆

Risk factor: ★★★☆☆

The imperial scorpion (Pandinus imperator) is the largest scorpion in the world, with a length of 20 centimeters. Relative to its size, its toxicity is not strong. Picture: shutterstock

Scorpions are closely related to spiders, and the most significant difference between them is in the abdomen: instead of healing into a spherical belly like spiders, they gradually become thinner, and the last segment is spiny with venomous glands. Scorpions and spiders also have chelate limbs, after all, they are members of the subphylum chelate, but the scorpion's chelate limbs are not connected to the venomous glands.

The basic body structure of Arachnida: (1) foot, (2) head and chest, (3) abdomen. Picture: wiki commons

Scorpion venom is very similar to spider venom in that it is made up of small peptides. Scorpion toxins can be divided into two categories according to their molecular size, but both of them act on nerve receptors: one is a slightly larger molecular weight, which acts on the nerve surface, and the other has a smaller molecular weight, such as potassium channels, chloride channels and so on. Both scorpion toxins can paralyze prey.

However, there are great differences between scorpion venom and spider venom. Through the study, it is found that the neurotoxin, which accounts for about 10% and 50% of scorpion venom, has a strong lethal effect on mammals, while the neurotoxin specifically targeted at insects is only about 1%. Why do scorpions feel so bad with mammals? One possible explanation is that scorpions differentiate early from arachnids, mainly on the ground, and are more likely to encounter mammals than later arboreal spiders, and under the predation pressure of mammals, scorpions with a "killer mace" for mammals have survived and developed to this day.

In our country, you may see East Asian scorpion. Picture: UniProt

Scorpions, especially Buthus martensi, are common indoor poisons in northwest China. But fortunately, it is a less virulent one in the Buthidae family, and it is probably just red, swollen and painful when stung by it. Its relatives, such as the Israeli golden scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus), are not so easy to mess with, because it likes to hide in clothes folds or shoes, so there are often cases of severe stings, which can be fatal to children or frail people. The family Scorpionidae is the family with the largest number of poisonous species in the order Scorpio, and most of the poisonous scorpions belong to this family. Some larger, more fierce-looking scorpions, such as the emperor scorpion (Pandinusspp.), are less toxic and rely more on two powerful claws for hunting. For scorpions, the more developed the chelate is, the weaker the toxicity is, and vice versa. It seems that whether it is biased towards physical attack or chemical attack also needs to be considered.

Toad

Frequency of occurrence: ★★★★☆

Risk factor: ★☆☆☆☆

In ancient times, the toad was a kind of animal that people loved and hated. When it comes to hate, toads are among the "five poisons". "Toads want to eat swan meat" also portrays people's disdain for toads; when they say love, people regard toads as auspicious symbols, especially the three-legged "golden toad", which is regarded as a symbol of attracting wealth and treasures. But no matter how you look at it, there is a consensus that toads are poisonous. When we were young, old people used to say that toad urine would make people grow ringworm, while touching toads would make people look like toads in a pimple, as a warning to us who are still bear children. So is the toad so poisonous?

Big toad (Bufo bufo) is one of the common toad species in China. Picture: shutterstock

The most common toads in China are big toad (Bufo bufo), Chinese big toad (B. gargarizans) and black frame toad (B. melanostictus). The images of these three kinds of toads are also quite similar, which together constitute the classic image of "toad". There is a huge bulge behind the eyes of these toads, called the paraural gland. The white emulsion secreted by the paraural glands-toad venom-is the source of toad toxicity. The chemical constituents of Bufo bufonis are complex, including toad venom ligands, toad toxins and toad tryptamine compounds. Among them, most of the bufagin ligands have a structure similar to cardiotonic glycosides, which can increase the heart rate and heartbeat, while the toad tryptamine compounds have hallucinogenic ability.

Chinese big toad. Picture: DrewHeath / wiki commons

For toads, the main purpose of secreting venom is self-defense. These toxic ingredients can have an effect only after they come into contact with the exposed mucosa and are absorbed into the blood. for the skin, the stratum corneum can isolate the venom very well. As a result, common poisoning deaths often occur in cats and dogs who accidentally eat and lick toads, while most cases of human poisoning are due to greedy consumption of untreated toads or taking earthwork drugs made by toads. As for toad urine, there is nothing special about it, which contains only water, inorganic salts and a small amount of ammonia.

Gecko

Frequency of occurrence: ★★☆☆☆

Risk factor: ☆

Verrucous gecko is one of the common species of gecko indoors and outdoors, which is distributed in China, Korea and Japan. Picture: takuyamorihisa.com

Compared with the above serious poisonous guys, geckos are listed as "five poisons" purely as "lying guns". The common indoor and outdoor geckos in our country, such as non-webbed gecko (Gekko swinhonis), verrucous gecko (G. japonicus), webbed toe gecko (G. subpalmatus) and so on are non-toxic. Geckos were mistaken for poisonous insects by the ancients, probably because they were amazed at their peculiar skills, such as being able to crawl silently on walls, and leaving behind wriggling tails after being frightened. Of course, when we were young, we all heard legends such as gecko's urine would blind people's eyes, gecko's tail would get into people's ears and make people deaf, but in fact it was impossible.

Take gecko urine for example-geckos don't urinate. Like birds, the metabolite of gecko is uric acid. When its excretion passes through the ureter and bladder, the water will be recycled, while the insoluble uric acid will form urate with sodium and potassium plasma. After entering the cloaca, it is mixed with feces and excreted. It is precisely because of this efficient way of water recovery that gecko and other reptiles have the ability to adapt to the dry environment.

Common webbed-toed gecko in China. Picture: iNaturalist / wiki commons

The gecko's ability to break its tail is also amazing. When the gecko is caught or frightened, the tail muscles contract strongly, which makes the fracture surface between the caudal vertebrae detach and complete the "severing of the tail". The broken tail is twisted by spontaneous muscle contraction inside, attracting the attention of predators, giving the gecko a better chance to escape. The twisting of the gecko's tail is unconscious and does not "get into the ear" as the legend says. For a gecko with a severed tail, although the tail can grow again, there will be no vertebrae inside the new tail, but will be replaced by a cartilage canal, and the distribution of muscles will change, so that the new tail will not be broken again. In addition, severing the tail will also have a certain impact on the reproduction of the gecko, because for the gecko, the tail is a "warehouse" for storing nutrients such as fat. From this point of view, the gecko's strategy of "losing a car to protect a pawn" not only makes itself lose its nutrition, but also bears the reputation of a "poisonous bug". Is this lucky or unfortunate?

This article is from species Calendar author @ Feixue, Cartography @ Old Cat.

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