If you happen to be one of around , people who die of snake bites around the world in any given year, such facts are irrelevant. The Eastern Brown Snake Pseudonaja textilis and its relatives cause most of the bites and fatalities in Australia.
Photo Dr David Williams. While Australia has spiders, jellyfish and other animals with lethal venom, the reality is that bites and deaths are rare. Death is even rarer two to three cases a year. Animals that cause the greatest burden of human suffering and death are the ones we need to be most worried about, and from that perspective, the most dangerous are not Australian.
The fierce snake is found throughout a remote area in south-west Queensland and north-west South Australia! They thrive amongst the harsh conditions of their arid, outback environment! They can vary in coloration, however, are typically a light brown, dark brown or a straw-like colour. They are well adapted to the boom or bust life cycle of the brown plains rat, which also lives in the area. As the seasons change and food is abundant the rodents build to plague proportions, allowing the snakes to feast.
Before the development of anti-venom in the s bites from the taipan where mostly fatal. Victims should seek medical treatment immediately. The taipan inhabits the coastal areas in Australia's north and north east, from Brisbane to Darwin. The Inland Taipan Oxyuranus microlepidotus is also known as fierce snake, or lignum snake. It is not as big as the coastal taipan. As the name tells, this is a snake of the Australian Outback.
The fierce snake can be found in the Channel Country of south west Queensland, north east of South Australia, and in the north west of New South Wales.
The Inland Taipan varies from yellowish-brown to dark brown, it is usually darker in winter. It is a shy snake that shelters in cracks and holes. However, if it feels provoked, it will strike, after raising its forebody to give a warning. If the offender ignores the warning, the snake strikes and injects its most potential venom.
Although the fierce snake is known as the most dangerous, and the world's most venomous snake, there are not many people bitten by this snake, due to the remote environment it calls home. They live in open woodlands, in rural areas, but can be found at suburban peripheries of larger towns and cities as well. The output of venom is low because of its undersized fangs. However, brown snakes cause more deaths in Australia than any other snake. Firstly, the venom is very potential, and secondly, due to the large numbers, they are most like to come in contact with humans.
Most of the bites by a brown snake are the result of people trying to move, kill or otherwise handle the snake. The Dugite and Gwardar belong to the same snake family.
Victims of these Australian snakes respond quite well to the anti-venom. The Mulga snake belongs to the black snake family, not to the brown snakes. This is important to know when a bite needs to be treated, because a different anti-venom is required.
The Death Adder Acanthophis antarcticus is the only Australian snake that won't budge an inch, even if you're about to step on it. It lies camouflaged on sand, gravel or leaf litter so that its body is covered. It is most active at night, and can be found all over Australia except Victoria and the very south east of South Australia.
I got a message from an Outback Guide reader telling me that the above advice to stomp your feet when you see a snake is rather risky. This is what you should do:. Most snakes are good swimmers, and sea snakes have paddle-shaped tails which give them added propulsion in the water. A snake sheds its skin between one and four times a year. It does this by rubbing the front of its head on a rough surface until the skin splits.
The snake then slowly sloughs out of the skin, turning it inside out as it does so. In all snakes, the new skin with the same colours and patterns as the old is underneath and, when shed, the old skin is almost transparent.
When a snake is about to slough, the scale forming the spectacle over its eye will become 'milky', affecting its vision. Snakes are reptiles, which means they are ectothermic: they get their body heat from external sources. Endothermic animals, such as mammals and birds, regulate their body temperature internally.
A snake's body temperature - and so its level of activity - is controlled by the temperature of the air and the ground. It will try to maximise body heat by basking in the sun or lying on or near warm surfaces such as night-time roads or even, on occasion, household water heaters.
In cold areas of the state snakes hibernate during winter. However, in the more temperate climate along the coast they shelter in rock crevices and logs during cold weather and come out on warm days to soak up the heat of the sun.
During cold weather snakes are less active and therefore hunt less. In the winter their metabolisms slow down, and they use up body fat which has been stored up during the warmer months of the year. Catching and feeding is a very specialised activity. Most venomous snakes grab their prey by striking suddenly and biting while they inject venom into the victim. Some species will often strike three or four times. The toxins produced by the venomous snakes act to paralyse the victim, so that it dies or is unable to move before the snake tries to eat it.
These toxins also assist the snake's digestive processes, beginning by breaking down the victim's blood and other tissues. Pythons have no venom and use their strong bodies to immobilise their victims.
Having first grabbed the prey with its mouth, a python wraps its body coils tightly around the victim. As the coils are progressively tightened, the prey is suffocated. Other snakes grab their prey in their mouth and start swallowing immediately so the animal is eaten alive. The teeth in these snakes are arranged to resist escape of an animal once grabbed in the mouth. Sometimes both venom and constriction are used to kill and hold the prey.
A snake can dislocate its upper and lower jaws and separate the two sections of its lower jaw. This allows it to move each jaw independently, and to spread open its head and throat to swallow prey much larger than the usual diameter of its mouth. Digestion takes place in the stomach, with the aid of very strong digestive juices. Unlike endothermic animals, a snake's food digestion rate is influenced by external temperatures. Some deposit them in warm, rotting vegetation to incubate the eggs for weeks.
Pythons 'incubate' and protect their eggs by coiling their bodies around the eggs, almost continuously until they hatch. They can control temperature to a certain degree by shivering. Young snakes fend for themselves from birth. Depending on the species, each parent snake may produce between 10 and young in one breeding season.
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