Taipan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the Australian snake. See Tai-Pan (disambiguation) for other meanings.
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O. scutellatus |
Taipans are large (up to 3 metres in length), fast, highly venomous Australian snakes, one of which, the Fierce Snake, has the most toxic venom of any land species worldwide. The taipan was named by Donald Thompson after the word used by the Wik Mungkan Aboriginal people of central Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia.[1]
There exist two species: the common taipan, and the less common inland taipan (also known as the Fierce Snake and small-scaled snake) (Oxyuranus microlepidotus). The common taipan is broken up into two subspecies, the mainland coastal taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus scutellatus) and the Papuan taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus canni) which is native to the southern coast of Papua New Guinea. Their diet consists primarily of small rodents, especially rats, and bandicoots.
The coastal taipan is usually pale to dark brown in colour, fading to a lateral cream, although juveniles are lighter in colour. The Papuan taipan is black or purplish-gray, with a copper-coloured stripe on its back. They are easily found in sugar fields due to an abundance of rats - their main food source.
[edit] Venom and toxicity
The inland taipan is often considered to be the most venomous land snake. With an LD50 of 0.03 mg/kg, it is about 7 times as venomous as a Mojave rattlesnake and 15 times as venomous as a common cobra. Lethal dose calculations are made on mice, so they have a murine bias. The bias is emphasised in this species of snake, as it is specialised to feed on rodents. Calculated LD50 values might not be applicable to non-mammalian species, and may even be inaccurate for mammals other than mice, or other rodents. The venom from a single bite of the inland taipan might be potent enough to kill about 250,000 mice, or the mouse equivalent of 100 men. This species generally lives in remote and sparsely inhabited areas. Like most snakes, inland taipans are generally shy and will usually not bite unless they feel threatened. No fatalities have been attributed to this species, and all known bites have been to people who keep them in captivity or actively seek them out in the wild.
The common taipan is possibly the third-most venomous snake on Earth and arguably the second-largest venomous snake in Australia (the first arguably being the King Brown, Pseudechis australis). The danger posed by the coastal taipan was brought to Australian public awareness in 1950, when young herpetologist Kevin Budden was fatally bitten in capturing the first specimen available for antivenom research.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Sutton, Peter 1995 Wik Ngathan dictionary
