Inland Taipan
| Inland Taipan | ||||||||||||
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Inland taipan ( Oxyuranus microlepidotus ) |
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| Oxyuranus microlepidotus | ||||||||||||
| ( McCoy , 1879) |
The inland taipan ( Oxyuranus microlepidotus , outdated Parademansia microlepidota ), and Western Taipan , terror Otter , small shed snake or Australian inland taipan called, is the most venomous snake in the world. It is native to Australia and was first described by Sir Frederick McCoy in 1879. In English it is also called Small Scaled Snake , Western Taipan or Fierce Snake . The latter name means "wild snake" and is the most commonly used in common parlance. Inland taipan got this name from farmers because when they hunt they sometimes look like they are hunting the cattle in the pastureland. In German, the names "Schreckensotter" and "Zornschlange" are occasionally used. Due to its history of discovery and severe toxicity, it became Australia's most famous snake in the mid-1980s.
description
The body length is up to 2.5 m, with the average being around 1.8 m. Your head goes straight into the body without any lifts.
The inland taipan is the only snake in Australia that can change color. During the hot summer months, for example, it tends to be brightly colored in order to better reflect the sun's rays and to camouflage oneself better. In winter, on the other hand, it is rather darker in order to be able to absorb more of the sunlight. The brown animals have either a brown-red or brown-yellow belly and the color of their back runs towards the head towards black, whereby the head itself is mostly completely black. The olive-colored animals, however, do not have these abnormalities; their belly and head are the same color, only in some specimens the belly and head are darker. The back scales of both types of color have a black color around the tip from about a quarter of the body length. The resulting characteristic pattern is often disordered, but runs at least in some places in the form of diagonal lines across the body.
There is a risk of confusion with the black-headed form of the western brown snake ( Pseudonaja nuchalis ), which is thinner and has a different scale pattern.
behavior
Due to its toxicity, the inland taipan is often as aggressive as the coastal taipan . However, this is not the case, as it is rather shy animals that flee when there are signs of danger and hide in holes in the ground. If it is not possible to escape, however, they change to a defensive stance and wait for a moment to bite the attacker. When encountering this species, one should therefore never feel safe if the snake looks calm, as it often snaps back unexpectedly when it escapes. Like most snakes, even the inland taipan will only maintain its aggressive behavior as long as it believes it is a danger. As soon as he notices that he is not being harmed, he loses all aggressiveness and it is almost safe to be around him. Inland taipans are only active during the day. They show a highly specialized way of life that is inextricably linked to a native rat, the Plague Rat ( Rattus villosissimus ). The inland taipan feeds exclusively on small mammals. In addition to the preferred Plague Rat , these are mice ( Mus musculus ) and the jumping bag mouse ( Antechinomys laniger ).
habitat
Inland taipan mostly lives in a small area in the hot desert areas of West Queensland , but there have been reports of isolated sightings in southern New South Wales . Their habitat in the outback is remote and therefore safe from people. In addition, their range is not very large.
Poison
The toxicologically effective part of the poison is the nerve poison (neurotoxin) "Taipoxin", which is chemically a glycoprotein from the group of phospholipases A 2 . In addition, the snake produces a the clotting highly disturbing and a the red blood cells and muscle tissue destructive share of proteases . The length of their poison teeth varies between 3.5 and 6.2 mm. The injection amount per bite is between 44.2 mg to 110 mg. With an LD 50 value determined in mice of 2 μg / kg after subcutaneous injection of the pure "Taipoxin" and 25 μg / kg of the poisonous mixture, the domestic taipan is about 50 times more poisonous than an Indian cobra and 650 to 850 times more poisonous than a diamond rattlesnake and thus also the most poisonous known venomous snake . The average amount of poison secreted in one bite is theoretically sufficient to kill more than 230 (with a full venom gland up to 250) adult humans, 250,000 mice or 150,000 rats. So-called dry bites , in which no poison is injected, are very rare. However, due to the largely uninhabited range of the species, deaths in humans are extremely rare.
Discovery story
The Taipan has always been known to the Australian natives . The first records can be found in the biological literature of the 19th century. Because of only two specimens, the inland taipan was documented as Diemenia microlepidota in 1878 . These two specimens can still be found today in what is now the Melbourne Museum within the Museum Victoria . Since then, no more finds have been known and there have been no more records, so Diemenia microlepidota was considered lost.
In 1967, a tourist guide in remote southwest Queensland was bitten by a dark brown, black-headed snake. The effects of the bite were devastating. His life could only be saved by an air ambulance and the deployment of a specialist in Adelaide . The snake was only later identified as inland taipan through comparisons with other specimens.
The snake was therefore practically lost for around 100 years. After the discovery of the head and tail of another specimen of Oxyuranus microlepidotus , the Queensland Museum , led by Jeanette Covacevich, organized an expedition to the impassable Channel Country in the remote southwest of Queensland. At that time no one had any knowledge of the snake's way of life. Therefore it was pure coincidence that the expedition took place at the exact only time the inland taipan shows up, spring with sunny, warm and relatively calm days.
Only at this time does the animal leave its habitat , which preferably exists in deep crevices and passages. The first chance find was a specimen freshly killed by a wagon wheel. You knew you were in the right place. Within ten days, 13 specimens were caught and brought to the Queensland Museum. In twelve years of work, the special features of the snake were researched by specialists.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Goruma knowledge ( Memento from October 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c J. Fohlman, D. Eaker, E. Karlsoon, S. Thesleff: Taipoxin, an extremely potent presynaptic neurotoxin from the venom of the australian snake taipan (Oxyuranus s. Scutellatus). Isolation, characterization, quaternary structure and pharmacological properties. Eur. J. Biochem. 1976 Sep 15; 68 (2): 457-469.
- ↑ Science online lexica: Entry on "Taipoxin" in the lexicon of neuroscience. Retrieved June 8, 2010.