Coastal taipan

Identification

The coastal taipan is a medium to large snake with a deep, rectangular head that is clearly wider than its slender neck¹. Its back may be yellowish, reddish-brown, dark brown or almost black, while the head, and especially the snout, is noticeably paler than the body¹. The belly is yellowish to cream with scattered orange blotches, and the large eyes have an orange-brown iris and a round pupil¹. Adults average about 2 m long, and males grow slightly larger than females¹. Lengths of over 3 m have been reported, but the largest wild museum specimen reliably measured had a head-and-body length of 2.26 m, and a captive-bred taipan given to the Queensland Museum measured 2.9 m in total¹.

Distribution

The coastal taipan lives in northern and eastern Australia and in southern New Guinea². The Australian subspecies, Oxyuranus scutellatus scutellatus, ranges in an arc from north-eastern New South Wales through Queensland and across the north of the Northern Territory to northern Western Australia^1,2. The Papuan taipan, O. s. canni, lives in southern Papua New Guinea, and The Reptile Database also lists the species from Indonesian New Guinea². Genetic studies found little difference between Australian and New Guinea taipans, but the Papuan taipan is still kept as a separate subspecies because its colour pattern is consistently different². The name ‘taipan’ comes from the Wik-mungkan people of Cape York, and it was brought into general use by the anthropologist Donald Thomson¹.

Habitat

The coastal taipan lives in warm, wetter coastal regions, from temperate to tropical¹. Its habitats include monsoon forest, wet and dry sclerophyll forest and woodland, and grassy places such as grazing paddocks, disused rubbish tips and sugarcane fields, where rats are often plentiful¹. Thickets of introduced lantana are also favoured¹. It shelters in abandoned animal burrows, hollow logs and piles of vegetation and litter¹.

Behaviour

The coastal taipan is mainly active by day, mostly in the early to mid-morning, but it may become active at night in hot weather¹. It is active all year and is most often seen in late winter and spring¹. It changes colour with the seasons, becoming darker in winter and paler in summer, which probably helps it warm up in cool months and avoid overheating in hot ones¹. It is a nervous, alert snake that usually slips away quietly if given the chance¹. If surprised or cornered, it raises its head and forebody, flattens its body from side to side and may strike several times very quickly¹.

Diet

In the wild the coastal taipan eats only warm-blooded prey, such as rats, mice, bandicoots and birds¹. It hunts by sight, often travelling with its head raised, and when it spots prey it freezes, then lunges forward and bites one or more times¹. It then lets the prey go and later follows its scent trail with its tongue, which keeps the snake safe from the teeth of a struggling rat¹.

Reproduction

The coastal taipan lays eggs². Mating peaks in late winter and early spring, and wild taipans have been seen in what appears to be male combat¹. Two to three months after mating, the female lays 3 to 21 eggs, 11 on average, in a hollow log, under tree roots or in a cavity in the ground¹. The eggs hatch after two to three months, and the young are about 46 cm long¹. Taipans hatched in captivity can grow to over 1 m in their first year¹.

Venom and medical significance

The coastal taipan has the longest fangs of any Australian elapid snake, up to 12 mm, and injects a large amount of highly toxic venom deep into the flesh¹. The venom affects the nerves and blood clotting and can cause headache, vomiting, collapse, convulsions, paralysis, internal bleeding, muscle damage and kidney injury¹. In a study of 40 confirmed taipan bites in Australia, 33 people were envenomed, most often with paralysis, clotting problems, kidney injury and muscle damage, and early antivenom was linked to fewer of these complications⁵. The World Health Organization places it in its highest category of medical importance in Papua New Guinea, where, in a study of 166 people bitten by Papuan taipans, most of those envenomed developed bleeding problems and paralysis, and antivenom stopped the bleeding but usually did not reverse the paralysis^3,4. Before a specific taipan antivenom was introduced in 1956, a taipan bite was nearly always fatal¹. Anyone bitten should go to hospital immediately.

Conservation

The coastal taipan is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, based on an assessment published in 2018⁶. Young taipans are eaten by birds of prey and goannas, but few predators would take on a large adult¹. People still routinely kill taipans on sight¹.

Similar species

The coastal taipan is sometimes confused with large brown-coloured snakes, such as the eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis), other brown snakes and the mulga snake (Pseudechis australis)¹. A taipan usually has a pale face and snout, a large head and a slender neck, while in brown snakes and mulga snakes the snout is the same colour as the body or darker and the smaller head is barely wider than the neck^1,7. Its close relative, the inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), lives on the floodplains of the Channel Country in inland Queensland and South Australia, far from the coastal taipan’s range⁸. These differences are not a safe basis for handling any snake. Keep your distance from every snake you cannot identify.

In captivity

The coastal taipan is dangerously venomous and is not suitable as a pet. Captive taipans can be encouraged to breed almost all year round, and snake handlers made up 21 of the 40 confirmed taipan bites in one Australian study^1,5. In New South Wales, keeping venomous native reptiles requires an advanced reptile keeper licence and references confirming experience in handling them⁹.