Are hedgehogs immune to snake venom?

February 22, 2023 Lizl

This is a question that was asked many times before and will be asked again in the future. If you do a quick Google search it will tells you that hedgehogs, squirrels, mongooses, and a few other animals are immune to snake venom. Or at least resistant to it.

Hedgehogs first line of defense are their spines. They can roll up in a very tight ball, leaving no soft tissue areas or skin exposed. Which causes for little to no area left open for a snake to bite and inject venom into their bodies. But that doesn’t make them immune, that is just a very good self-defense mechanism.

So where does this idea originate from in the first place? For that you must look at wild hedgehogs’ natural diet. They prey on insects, often poisonous insects such as scorpions, millipedes, centipedes, and small snakes. They can be quite ferocious hunters. When hunting snakes, they will typically attack the snake on parts of the tail and up, biting until they can start managing to paralyze the snake, severing the vertebrae. Favoring poisonous insects and snakes had causes for these questions to be asked, and of course it has led to studies being conducted. The studies were mainly conducted with the intend of medical purposes – creating anti-venom serums.

It was proofed that at least the European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) do have the ability to resist snake venom. I could not find any research papers conducted with other hedgehog species, but the believe is that the results will be similar than those of the European Hedgehog.

The outcome of these studies was that the hedgehog`s (Erinaceus europaeus) blood plasma proofed to contains factor(s) that can neutralize the haemorrhagic activity of the European viper (Vipera berus) venom! The antihemorrhagic factors was indicated as an 21% activity.