Venomous snake
Belcher's sea snake ("Hydrophis belcheri"), which many times is mistakenly called the hook-nosed sea snake ("Enhydrina schistosa"), has been erroneously popularized as the most venomous snake in the world, due to the first edition of Ernst and 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 LD (recorded only intramuscularly) 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, drop by drop, is the most toxic among all snakes.
Epidemiology of snakebites
Of the 120 known indigenous snake species in North America, only 20 are venomous to human beings, all belonging to the families Viperidae and Elapidae. However, in the United States, every state except Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii is home to at least one of 20 venomous snake species. Up to 95% of all snakebite-related deaths in the United States are attributed to the western and eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. Further, the majority of bites in the United States occur in the southwestern part of the country, in part because rattlesnake populations in the eastern states are much lower.