Feb 27, 2024 at 11:01 PM Update: 2 hours ago
An American man died this month after being bitten by a Gila monster he illegally kept as a pet. The lizard species is venomous, but deaths from a bite are very rare in humans.
The 34-year-old Colorado resident had two pet Gila monsters: Winston and Potato. In Colorado, a permit is required to keep gila monsters as pets, but the man did not have one. He probably bought the lizards at a wildlife show.
It was Winston who bit the man on the hand. According to his girlfriend, the man soon after started vomiting and had trouble breathing. He was taken to hospital, where he died four days later.
According to a biologist feels the pain of a bite “as if you were getting your hand in the door”. The poison then causes even more pain than the sting of a bee, wasp or scorpion.
Yet it is not often that people die from a bite from a Gila monster. “It’s a very unusual consequence of a gila monster bite,” a biology professor told CBS News.
The 34-year-old man is only the second American in a century to die after a bite from a Gila monster. There have only been six deaths worldwide known. Winston and Potato were given to a special reptile shelter.
Image: AP
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Animal lizards
2024-02-27 22:01:55
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