Oxyuranus temporalis

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Oxyuranus temporalis
Systematics
Subordination : Snakes (serpentes)
Superfamily : Adder-like and viper-like (Colubroidea)
Family : Poison Snakes (Elapidae)
Subfamily : Hydrophiinae
Genre : Taipane ( Oxyuranus )
Type : Oxyuranus temporalis
Scientific name
Oxyuranus temporalis
Doughty , Maryan , Donnellan & Hutchinson , 2007

Oxyuranus temporalis is a snake from the genus of the Taipan , which was described in 2007 based on a 2006 prisoners in Central Australia the female. Thespecific epithet temporalis indicates the scaling of the temples, which differs from other taipans.

features

The head of Oxyuranus temporalis is broad and set off from the neck. The eyes are big, the iris is black. The head is brownish-cream-colored and clearly lighter than the pale light brown body, which also has indistinct, darker olive-gray areas. The ventral side is pale yellowish and has spots on the head. The body length of the holotype , of a probably almost sexually mature female, was about 99 centimeters.

Oxyuranus temporalis can be distinguished from the other taipans by the presence of only one temporal shield instead of two and six instead of seven sublabial shields , with a small scale below the last sublabial.

The trunk of the holotype has 21 rows of scales in the middle of the body, 250 ventral shields , 60 paired sub-caudal shields and an undivided anal shield .

Occurrence and way of life

Almost nothing is known about the way of life and distribution of the species. The female on which the description is based had the remains of a small mammal in the digestive tract. It was caught on the eastern edge of the Walter James Range in Western Australia , near the borders of the Northern Territory and South Australia .

swell

  • Paul Doughty, Brad Maryan, Stephen C. Donnellan, Mark N. Hutchinson: A new species of taipan (Elapidae: Oxyuranus) from central Australia . In: Zootaxa . tape 1422 , 2007, p. 45–58 (English, full text [PDF; 558 kB ]).

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