Inland taipan
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 Ernst and Zug's published book "Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book" from 1996. Bryan Grieg Fry, a prominent venom expert, 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, less lethal than other sea snakes such as the olive sea snake ("Aipysurus laevis") 0.09 mg/kg and the most toxic intramuscularly, recorded of the sea snakes – the black-banded robust sea snake ("Hydrophis melanosoma") 0.082 mg/kg. The black-banded robust sea snake has also been tested subcutaneously registering at 0.111 mg/kg. more than four times less toxic than the inland taipan's venom. In the LD subcutaneous test, it is actually Dubois' sea snake ("Aipysurus duboisii") which has the most toxic venom of any of the sea snakes tested, registering at 0.044 mg/kg. This is still nearly half as lethal as the inland taipan's venom.
Venomous snake
The toxicity of snake venom (based on laboratory tests conducted on mice) is sometimes used to gauge the extent of danger to humans, but this is not enough. Many venomous snakes are specialized predators whose venom may be adapted specifically to incapacitate their preferred prey. A number of other factors are also critical in determining the potential hazard of any given venomous snake to humans, including their distribution and behavior. For example, while the inland taipan is regarded as the world's most venomous snake based on LD tests on mice, it is a shy species and rarely strikes, and has not caused any known human fatalities. On the other hand, India's Big Four (Indian cobra, common krait, Russell's viper, and saw-scaled viper), while less venomous than the inland taipan, are found in closer proximity to human settlements and are more confrontational, thus leading to more deaths from snakebite. In addition, some species, such as the black mamba and coastal taipan, occasionally show some aggression, generally when alarmed or in self-defence, and then may deliver fatal doses of venom, resulting in high human mortality rates.