Taipan

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This article is about the Australian snake. For other uses, see Tai-Pan (disambiguation).
Taipans

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Elapidae
Genus: Oxyuranus
Species

O. scutellatus
O. s. scutellatus (Coastal Taipan)
O. s. canni (Papuan Taipan)
O. s. barringeri (Northwest Taipan)
O. microlepidotus (Inland Taipan)
O. temporalis (Central Ranges Taipan)

A taipan is a large, fast, highly venomous Australasian snake. One species, the inland taipan, has the most toxic venom of any land species worldwide, although it is not the most deadly. 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 are three known species: the coastal taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus), the less common inland taipan (also known as the fierce snake and small-scaled snake) (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) and a recently discovered third species, the Central Ranges taipan (Oxyuranus temporalis).[2] The coastal taipan has two subspecies: the coastal taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus scutellatus) and the Papuan taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus canni), found on southern coast of Papua New Guinea. Their diet consists primarily of small mammals, especially rats and bandicoots.

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[edit] Description

Taipans can grow 6½ to 12 feet long (2 to 3.6 metres).[3] 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 often found in sugar fields due to an abundance of rats - their main food source. They feed upon these two or three times a week.

In several aspects of morphology, ecology and behaviour, the common taipan is strongly convergent with an African elapid, Dendroaspis polylepis (the black mamba).[4]

[edit] Trivia

The Central Ranges taipan was ranked fifth in the top species of 2008 by the International Institute for Species Exploration[1].

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Sutton, Peter 1995 Wik Ngathan dictionary
  2. ^ mapress.com
  3. ^ Kindersley, Dorling (2001,2005). Animal. New York City: DK Publishing. ISBN 0-7894-7764-5. 
  4. ^ http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1511(198303)17:1%3C60:EOHVST%3E2.0.CO;2-A

[edit] External links