Human uses of reptiles

Myths of creatures with snake-like or reptilian attributes are found around the world, from Chinese and European dragons to the Woolunga of Australia.

Classical myths told of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra, the Gorgon sisters including the snake-haired Medusa, and the snake-legged Titans.

Practical uses of reptiles include the manufacture of snake antivenom and the farming of crocodiles, principally for leather but also for meat.

Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms like art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing.

[1] The ethnobiologist Luis Ceriaco reviews the place of reptiles in culture, as studied by ethnoherpetology, considering their practical uses, namely food, medicine, and other materials; their contribution to "ecological equilibrium", the balance of nature; and negative or fearful attitudes to them (especially snakes), causing persecution, an additional challenge for conservation.

[3] A more recent perspective is to view the interactions of humans and reptiles as something of "more-than-human agency", in other words the subject of a multi-species study.

[4] A dragon is a reptile-like legendary creature in the myths of European and Chinese cultures, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian countries.

Medusa is described as a hideous mortal, with snakes instead of hair and the power to turn men to stone with her gaze.

Ancient Egypt had Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, with his cult-city Crocodilopolis, as well as Taweret, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, with the back and tail of a crocodile.

[7] In Hinduism, Varuna, a Vedic and Hindu god, rides a makara, a water-beast like a crocodile,[14][15] and he is called Nāgarāja, lord of snakes.

In the annual Hindu festival of Nag Panchami, snakes are venerated and prayed to, and given gifts of milk, sweets, flowers, and lamps.

"In states of ecstasy, lords dance a serpent dance; great descending snakes adorn and support buildings from Chichen Itza to Tenochtitlan, and the Nahuatl word coatl meaning serpent or twin, forms part of primary deities such as Mixcoatl, Quetzalcoatl, and Coatlicue.".

[23] In Christianity and Judaism, a serpent appears in Genesis 3:1 to tempt Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

[13] In America, the snake has served as a symbol of deceptiveness, as when US President Andrew Jackson told the Creek Nation in 1829 that he spoke with a straight tongue, not a forked one.

[36] The animal reappears many times in Western literature, including in Isidore of Seville's medieval Etymologiae,[37] and more recently in J. K. Rowling's 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The eponymous heroine in William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra kills herself with an asp viper, while John Milton's Paradise Lost describes Satan as a mighty serpent, "Fold above fold a surging Maze his Head / Crested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes; / With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erect / Amidst his circling Spires.

"[42] Among the novels that feature snakes, Lemony Snicket's 1999 The Reptile Room tells of a herpetologist who cares for orphaned children and dies of snakebite, while Barbara Kingsolver's 1998 thriller The Poisonwood Bible portrays a missionary in the Congo, who is greeted by the planting of deadly snakes in his friend's houses, and then his own.

This tale was first spread widely in English in the stories of the travels of Sir John Mandeville in the 14th century, and appears in several of Shakespeare's plays.

[45] Reptiles including crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and tortoises have been portrayed by artists since ancient times, using media as varied as fresco, ceramic, marble, jewellery, and oil on canvas.

[50][51] One dinosaur appeared in literature even earlier, as Charles Dickens placed a Megalosaurus in the first chapter of his novel Bleak House in 1852.

The depictions range from the realistic, as in the television documentaries of the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, or the fantastic, as in the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s such as Q – The Winged Serpent.

[51][53][54] These were followed by Steven Spielberg's highly successful[55][56] 1993 Jurassic Park, a film adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1990 novel, and its sequels, based on the idea of bringing a terrifying beast back from extinction by cloning from fossil DNA.

Farming has resulted in an increase in the saltwater crocodile population in Australia, as eggs are usually harvested from the wild, so landowners have an incentive to conserve their habitat.

[64][65] Turtle plastrons (shells) are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine; hundreds of tons of them are imported into Taiwan each year.

[66] In the modern day the demand for live fresh water turtles for consumption in South East Asia, and particularly China has resulted in a worldwide market that is threatening a great number of species.

The drink was first recorded to have been consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty and considered an important curative and believed to reinvigorate a person according to Traditional Chinese medicine.

Gila toxin reduces plasma glucose; the substance is now synthesised for use in the anti-diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta).

[76] Reptiles including crocodilians, snakes, turtles, and lizards are used in traditional medicine in Brazil for a wide range of conditions including asthma, headache, herpes zoster, impotence, infections, jaundice, respiratory diseases, snake bite, thrombosis, toothache, and wounds.

Persecution resulting from folklore and people's attitudes can thus be added to the challenge of conserving reptiles, already threatened by human activities including destruction of their habitats, pollution, climate change, competition with introduced alien species, and excessive exploitation, such as for bushmeat.