And the filmmakers have said that's what the carnivores eat, so while they haven't confirmed or denied a Birdville, a Scalie Town or even a Fish City, Bugville seems out.
But, actually, go with me here, I'm having fun (also, I'm just going to step all over spoilers, though kind of belated warning); actually, if the toxin "pooled" itself in the brain (which makes sense), that would be the last place the doctors would look. Not because it's not the obvious place to look (it is), but if it can only be detected via an actual sample, well, the brain is a place that even brain surgeons fear to tread. One false move, and, well, the savageness is cured, because you're a vegetable. And they may have been afraid to use anesthetics, for the same reason you don't mix certain prescriptions; some kind of chemical is almost certainly in there, but until you know what that chemical is, you don't know how it and the anesthetic will react together (and you even have to consider that a tiger's biochemistry might react differently than an otter's). (And, just by the by, the tiger jump scare in the lab has been a pretty effective one; it got an actual scream at one of my showings. Not a loud scream, just a startled, quick "Ah!", but still a scream!)
Also, you then add in the fact that, as already pointed out, although Night Howlers are known to be poisonous, they have to be eaten. Yes, Stu cautions the young bunnies not to run through them, but he's overly cautious; they still sell them at most flower shops (they are pretty flowers, after all). At most, handling them without washing your hands may be harmful (and the bunnies are running through the flowers to get a piece of pie in an outdoor setting).
Meanwhile, the serum created from the Night Howlers is absorbed through the skin; the badger doctor may have thought, "Kind of looks like Night Howler poisoning," but, as noted, ingestion of flowers is probably unusual in predators, and even then, there are really easy ways to check what has recently passed through someone's digestive tract, and no actual Night Howlers would have.
Other than the extremely quick time from contact to full on savage (movie toxins are always way too fast acting), thinking about it, I think it holds up pretty well, actually. More than I actually thought it would.
And the filmmakers have said that's what the carnivores eat, so while they haven't confirmed or denied a Birdville, a Scalie Town or even a Fish City, Bugville seems out.
But, actually, go with me here, I'm having fun (also, I'm just going to step all over spoilers, though kind of belated warning); actually, if the toxin "pooled" itself in the brain (which makes sense), that would be the last place the doctors would look. Not because it's not the obvious place to look (it is), but if it can only be detected via an actual sample, well, the brain is a place that even brain surgeons fear to tread. One false move, and, well, the savageness is cured, because you're a vegetable. And they may have been afraid to use anesthetics, for the same reason you don't mix certain prescriptions; some kind of chemical is almost certainly in there, but until you know what that chemical is, you don't know how it and the anesthetic will react together (and you even have to consider that a tiger's biochemistry might react differently than an otter's). (And, just by the by, the tiger jump scare in the lab has been a pretty effective one; it got an actual scream at one of my showings. Not a loud scream, just a startled, quick "Ah!", but still a scream!)
Also, you then add in the fact that, as already pointed out, although Night Howlers are known to be poisonous, they have to be eaten. Yes, Stu cautions the young bunnies not to run through them, but he's overly cautious; they still sell them at most flower shops (they are pretty flowers, after all). At most, handling them without washing your hands may be harmful (and the bunnies are running through the flowers to get a piece of pie in an outdoor setting).
Meanwhile, the serum created from the Night Howlers is absorbed through the skin; the badger doctor may have thought, "Kind of looks like Night Howler poisoning," but, as noted, ingestion of flowers is probably unusual in predators, and even then, there are really easy ways to check what has recently passed through someone's digestive tract, and no actual Night Howlers would have.
Other than the extremely quick time from contact to full on savage (movie toxins are always way too fast acting), thinking about it, I think it holds up pretty well, actually. More than I actually thought it would.