<< Reports indicate that snakes were sold in the local seafood market in Wuhan, raising the possibility that the 2019-nCoV might have jumped from the host species - bats - to snakes and then to humans at the beginning of this coronavirus outbreak. However, how the virus could adapt to both the cold-blooded and warm-blooded hosts remains a mystery. >>
Haitao Guo, Guangxiang “George” Luo, Shou-Jiang Gao. Snakes could be the original source of the new coronavirus outbreak in China. Jan 22, 2020.
https://theconversation.com/snakes-could-be-the-original-source-of-the-new-coronavirus-outbreak-in-china-130364
Wei Ji, Wei Wang, et al. Homologous recombination within the spike glycoprotein of the newly identified coronavirus may boost cross‐species transmission from snake to human. Journal of Medical Virology. doi: 10.1002/jmv.25682. Jan 22, 2020.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.25682
Also
here a Brazilian 'relative' of the Chinese snake ...
# life: squeezing jaraca' (Bothrops jararaca). FonT. Dec 24, 2019.
https://twitter.com/flashontrack/status/1209527656091402243
https://flashontrack.blogspot.com/2019/12/life-squeezing-jaraca-bothrops-jararaca.html
