Bitis are well known for being some of the most commonly encountered and medically important snake species in all of Africa. While the majority of species possess potently anticoagulant venom, only B. worthingtoni is known to possess procoagulant venom. Although known to be the basal species within the genus, B. worthingtoni is an almost completely unstudied species with even basic dietary information lacking. This study investigated various aspects of the unique procoagulant effects of B. worthingtoni venom. Coagulation assays determined the primary procoagulant effect to be driven by Factor X activating snake venom metalloprotease toxins. In addition to acting upon the mammalian blood clotting cascade, B. worthingtoni venom was also shown to clot amphibian plasma. As previous studies have shown differences in clotting factors between amphibian and mammalian plasmas, individual enzymes in snake venoms acting on plasma clotting factors can be taxon-selective. As venoms evolve under purifying selection pressures, this suggests that the procoagulant snake venom metalloprotease toxins present in B. worthingtoni have likely been retained from a recent common ancestor shared with the related amphibian-feeding Proatheris superciliaris, and that both amphibians and mammals represent a substantial proportion of B. worthingtoni current diet. Thus, taxon-specific actions of venoms may have utility in inferring dietary composition for rare or difficult to study species. An important caveat is that to validate this hypothesis field studies investigating the dietary ecology of B. worthingtoni must be conducted, as well as further investigations of its venom composition to reconstruct the molecular evolutionary history of the toxins present.

众所周知，乙炎是整个非洲最常见和医学上最重要的蛇种。尽管大多数物种都具有强效的抗凝性毒液，但已知只有沃氏芽孢杆菌具有促凝性毒液。尽管已知它是该属中的基础物种，但它几乎是一个尚未完全研究的物种，甚至缺乏基本的饮食信息。这项研究调查了B.worthingtoni毒液独特促凝作用的各个方面。凝血试验确定主要的促凝血作用是由因子X激活蛇毒金属蛋白酶毒素驱动的。除了作用于哺乳动物的凝血级联反应外，B.worthingtoni毒液还被证明可凝结两栖类血浆。正如先前的研究表明，两栖动物和哺乳动物血浆中凝血因子的差异，作用于血浆凝血因子的蛇毒中的个别酶可能是分类分类的。当毒液在纯化选择压力下进化时，这表明存在于worthingtoni中的促凝蛇毒金属蛋白酶毒素可能已经从与相关两栖动物喂养的Proatheris superciliaris共享的最近共同祖先中保留下来，并且两栖动物和哺乳动物都代表了巴氏杆菌的比例目前的饮食习惯。因此，毒液的分类群特异性作用可能有助于推断稀有或难于研究的物种的饮食组成。一个重要的警告是，为了验证该假设，必须进行野外研究，调查沃辛顿通体的饮食生态，并进一步调查其毒液成分以重建目前毒素的分子进化史。