Restrospective Bibliometric Analysis on Colombian Snake Toxinology Knowledge

Across human history, venomous snakes have been an important source of attention in arts, engineering, spirituality and, of course, in science and medicine. In part, human interest in snakes is due to the potential threat that they exhibit to human health but at the same time to the ecological, evolutionary and biotechnological relevance of their venoms. Toxinology, as the study of venoms and toxins, has gained attention over the last years but unfortunately, in megadiverse countries like Colombia, it still is an incipient field of research. It is essential to determine the advances for Colombia in this critical field and to identify gaps and future challenges. In order to quantify the publication dynamics on ophidian toxinology, a bibliometric review of toxinology papers regarding Colombian snake venoms was conducted. Systematic searches were carried out on different academic databases using distinct combinations of search terms into equations. Then, data was extracted on institution affiliation of the authors, year of publication, the focus of the investigation, factor of venom variability analyzed, geographical origin of venoms, taxonomical classification of the species, among others. Some of the results show frequent coauthorship between Colombian and Costa Rican institutions, a tendency on investigations focused on assessment of toxicity neutralization, taxonomy and geography as the factors of venom variability more commonly analyzed, and a comprehensive representation of species such as Bothrops asper and Bothrops atrox over others from the Bothriechis, Micrurus and more genera. We found a high frequency of studies on snake venoms of specimens from the western Colombian departments Antioquia and Choco. We concluded that studies on the venoms of Colombian snakes, overpassing the 80 papers published since 1896, require more collaborative projects that cover a broader geographic and taxonomic scale, also including new techniques being developed worldwide.