New Aussie Serpent
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 13th, 2007
AUSTRALIAN researchers have found a new species of taipan snake slithering in the outback. Similar to the western brown snake, the still unnamed species was discovered during an expedition to a remote region about 200km northwest of Uluru in September last year.
Dr Mark Hutchinson, reptile and amphibian curator at the South Australian Museum, caught the immature female taipan while it was crossing a dirt track.
He said the reptile was about one metre long but, because it was one of the most venomous snakes in the world, he did not inspect the creature on site.
Dr Hutchinson was part of a research group from the South Australian and West Australian museums that was in isolated outback region to make the first scientific inventory of the area’s animal and plant species.
Dr Hutchinson said he bagged the snake and sent it, along with others captured from the trip, to the Western Australian Museum in Perth for closer inspection.
It was not until two weeks later that the new species was studied.
“It was a bit of a surprise,” Dr Hutchinson said.
“In fact I found it really hard to believe at first.
“This isn’t the 19th century – you usually don’t find a new species that big out in the open, well not in Australia.”
The two known species of taipan are not found in sandy desert habitats, with the closest family members to the new discovery recorded some 800km away.
The inland taipan was the last taipan reported in the region – and that was seen more than 125 years ago.
Dr Hutchinson said the discovery demonstrated the incredible diversity of the Australian outback.
He said he expected other undiscovered species to be out there as well.
He said further tests were now underway and a paper would soon be published outlining the new discovery.
WA Museum herpetologist Paul Doughty said the reptile was named the Central Ranges Taipan, or Oxyuranus temporalis, and was likely to be extremely venomous. “But we won’t know just how venomous until more of them are caught and the venom tested,” Dr Doughty said.
“Australia has the world’s most deadly snakes, of which the taipans are the most charismatic and notorious.”Todd Cardy
The Australian
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I love snakes. I’m always glad to hear of new species.
The entire description of the species has been published n the paper “A new species of taipan (Elapidae: Oxyuranus) from central Australia”, researchers P. Doughty, B. Maryan, S.C. Donnellan and M.N. Hutchinson (in Zootaxa 1422: 45-58: 2007) described Oxyuranus temporalis.
The actual paper is available freely at Zootaxa.
Craig Heinselman
Peterborough, NH
I loved this quote:
“This isn’t the 19th century – you usually don’t find a new species that big out in the open, well not in Australia.”
Yeah. No kidding. I think Holland or Belgium, THAT’S where we look for the big guys. 😀
Could one come up with a better example of Blinded By Science than that quote? No wonder we haven’t found any hairy hominoids yet. What, like 92% of the Australian population lives along the coast. I’d agree, WAY too densely populated to find a new snake.
That’s funny.
Don’t worry, Yowie. You are SO safe. Or maybe not. After all, it isn’t herpies looking for the Yowie. 😀
Australia is sparsely populated and absolutely huge. The fact that the interior outback is so forbidding and costly to full scale scientific expeditions makes it all the more probable that many species, including possibly megafauna, are out there to be found. I have no doubts there are other new discoveries out there waiting to be made.
A concerted effort should be made to explore the entire outback over a period of 10 years and catalogue the entire natural history of the area
DWA, I agree. Way too densely populated to find a large poisonous snake that looks like another large poisonous snake that people usually run away from because it’s, well, large and poisonous. If you’re going to find a new specie, it’s going to be a man sized primate, probably near the coast. wait…
Well, in the ‘Next?’ thread no-one guessed big snake, Oz. Shows how much we know!
Great find, thanks for letting us know Loren.