Snakes. The word itself sends shivers down our spine. But, for others, who are fascinated by these wriggly reptiles…you know, people like Vava Suresh, Vidya Raju, and more, there’s an app that’s been introduced. Snakepedia or what we would call, an encyclopedia of snakes.
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Have you wondered humans are afraid of snakes? Apparently, it’s in our nature to be afraid of snakes. We are not born with the fear. As we grow up, we learn to fear them. Snakes have always been a threat to the human species, and we are evolutionary conditioned to stay away or protect ourselves from external threats. Think about it. If there’s even a slight chance of you dying because of a snake bite, wouldn’t you avoid the situation altogether? Exactly our point! But, what we fail to understand is that snakes as a community are very interesting to study.
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Much of what we have learned about snakes come from stories told by our family members, friends, news outlets and maybe, our school textbooks that don’t go into the details. Therefore, our knowlegee about snakes is very limited. That’s why Dr Jinesh PS, the brains behind the Snakepedia app, decided to introduce a user-friendly app that contains everything you need to know about snakes.
In an interview with The Indian Express, he shared, “We have been hearing news of children dying in snake-bite cases due to unscientific reasons. That’s on one side. On the other side, people bring the snake that they beat to death to the hospitals along with snake-bite victims. That’s totally unnecessary because, in India, 99.99% of deaths as a result of snake bite are due to just four species of snakes: Krait, Cobra, saw-scaled viper and Russell’s viper. The antivenom to the poison of all these snakes is the same, so there’s really no need to identify the species of the snake. There’s no difference in treatment, only symptoms and test results matter.”
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Snakepedia also includes podcasts, Ask Expert tool, precautionary measures that need to be taken during bite cases and contact numbers of snake catchers and officials who deal with snake encounters.
Unique features of this app are:
* Offline access to general info on all snakes of Kerala
* Exclusive gallery of HD pictures from professional wildlife photographers
* Online help from experts for identification
* Contact info of trained rescuers across the state
* Contact info of hospitals with Anti snake venom
* Articles by experts on first aid, treatment and much more
* Easy ID tips
* Comparison of look-alike species
* Podcasts
* Interesting myths and facts
But, more than that, the app aims to bust our negative understanding of snakes and inculcate an interest in studying them. The app took a lot of time to create because of the research-intensive information that had to be fed. Documentation and global research by photographers, scientist, doctors, wildlife adventurists were compiled together to create the app.
It is now available in English and Malayalam.
