There are many deadly snakes out in the world, and not surprisingly, Australia is home to most of them. The death adder (Acanthopis antarcticus) not only has the scariest name, but also has a very powerful venom that can cause paralysis, respiratory issues, and sometimes even death when a human is bitten. Fortunately, death adders don’t typically bite humans unless they feel threatened.

If you are bitten by a death adder (or one of many other dangerous snakes) in Australia, you will likely be given some antivenom that was made with venom that was collected at teh Australian Reptile Park. This park has a venom milking program where they collect the venom of various snakes so that it can be used to make life-saving antivenom.

At this park, the team had a death adder that produced a lot of venom, which they thought very little of. When they looked closer, however, they found something that may make this the deadliest death adder in the world.

A third fang.

Most venomous snakes have two fangs that they use for biting and injecting their venom into their prey. For some reason, this one had three. Billy Collett is the Operations Manager at the Australian Reptile Park. He recently spoke with IFLScience about this unique snake:

“Snakes naturally shed their fangs regularly but rarely do they stick around, and even more rarely do they actually produce venom like this one does. We don’t know what has caused this and we don’t have the facilities here to do proper testing, but our best guess is a rare mutation.”

This means that the snake could transmit a third more venom in the same amount of time. And with the death adder, that is not much time at all. These snakes have one of the fastest strike speeds in nature, being able to complete a bite in just .15 seconds. Collett went on to say:

“This is something we’ve never seen before. We’ve had this death adder in the venom program for about seven years, but only recently did we notice the third fang. I thought it would just shed off over time, but one year later, and it’s still there!”

Whatever the cause for this third fang, it makes this snake interesting and very valuable when it comes to collecting venom.

For as deadly as it could be, the venom collected from it has likely saved many lives.

Thought that was fascinating? Here’s another story you might like: Why You’ll Never See A Great White Shark In An Aquarium