and are acquired by sequestering toxins from poisonous toads the snakes eat. Similarly, certain garter snakes from Oregon can retain toxins in their livers from ingesting rough-skinned newts. Danger Toxicity issues Venom toxicities are compared by looking at the median lethal dose (usually using rodents as test animals and termed the murine LD50), which is the dose of venom per unit body mass that kills half of the test animals that receive it. The result obtained depends on which of the four delivery sites is used for the injection: subcutis (SC), vein (IV), muscle or peritoneum (IP). Smaller murine LD50 values indicate venoms that are more toxic, and there have been numerous studies on snake venom with a variability of potency estimates. SC LD50 is considered the most applicable to actual bites as only vipers with large fangs (such as large specimens from the genera Bitis, Bothrops, Crotalus, or Daboia) are capable of a truly intramuscular bite, snakebites rarely cause IV envenomation, and IP envenomation is even rarer. Measurements of LD50 using dry venom mixed with 0.1% bovine serum albumin in saline are more consistent than the results obtained using saline alone. As an example, the venom of the eastern brown snake has a murine LD50 (SC) of when measured in 0.1% bovine serum albumin in saline; when saline alone is used, the value is . Belcher's sea snake, which sometimes is mistakenly called the hook-nosed sea snake, has been erroneously popularized as the most venomous snake in the world, due to the first edition of Ernst and Zug's book, Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book, published in 1996. Prominent venom expert Associate Professor Bryan Grieg Fry has clarified the error: "The hook nosed myth was due to a fundamental error in a book called Snakes in Question. In there, all the toxicity testing results were lumped in together, regardless of the mode of testing (e.g., subcutaneous vs. intramuscular vs. intravenous vs. intraperitoneal). As the mode can influence the relative number, venoms can only be compared within a mode. Otherwise, it's apples and rocks." Belcher's sea snake's actual LD50 (IM) is 0.24 mg/kg and 0.155 mg/kg. Studies on mice and human cardiac cell culture show that venom of the inland taipan is the most toxic among all snakes. Other factors The toxicity of snake venom, based on laboratory tests conducted on mice, is sometimes used to gauge the extent