Taipans (Oxyuranus scutellatus canni)

Length: 

The average length of a PNG Taipan is 175 – 250 cm but there are reports and snakes found over 350 cm in length.

Zoological description:

            Taipans are large and slender elapid snakes. The big head is clearly distinct from the narrow neck. He shape of the head always reminds me a bit like the head from a mamba but then a little bit wider. The huge venom glands can be clearly seen at the back of the head behind the eye. The colour of the eye is most of the time bright orange with a round pupil. The tail from a taipan is long and looks like a whip.

The colouration of a the Taipans from Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya varies between locations. The body colour is olive or dark brown at the specimens of the Western Province (O’Shea 1996) or grey to black, or even light blue for the Central Province (O’Shea 1996). The Taipans from Irian Jaya have the same colouration as the ones of the Central Province. At the back there is a dorsal orange to red stripe, this occurs at the most taipans, I have seen some coppery brown animals that were missing this dorsal stripe. He ventral side of the taipan is crèmes or white with or without orange brown speckles. The head of the snakes is most of the time the same of colouring then the body but is sometimes darker or more pale from colour, especially the taipans of Irian Jaya are know to have a crèmes grey like head as we know from there cousins of the mainland Australia.     

Scalation:

-          Dorsal scales midbody  21-23. These scales are a little bit keeled.

-          Ventral scales 220-250

-          Subcaudal scales 45-80 paired scales

-          Superlabials 6

-          Interlabials 8

-          Anal scale is single

Keeping  large elapid snakes is a big responsibility, especially when we talk about mambas (Dendroapsis ssp.) and Taipans (Oxyuranus). In this article I try to tell how I keep my Taipans and how to take care of them.

My first encounters with Taipans:

            Taipans always were one of my favourite snake species. But just like most Dutch herpetologists I had never seen them in real life but only in books and on television. So when I saw the change to go travelling for a whole year true Australia I took that change. The first day in Australia was in Sydney were I visited Taronga Zoo were I saw my first life taipan. Of course this cost me two new roles of film that I shot empty on the both species they kept there. A couple of days later I went to the Gosford reptile park and saw some other specimens. At this time it started to be a little itchy under my feet and I wanted to go as soon as possible up to Northern Queensland were the sugarcane fields where and also the coastal Taipans be told to life. So as I said so did I go. And after a long three day drive I arrived in Mackay. The first day was a quiet day and I stayed in the youth hostel and went to the pub. In the pub I asked around for Taipans and as I could guess I got lots and lots of stories about monstrous taipans that chase you and lot more of this sort of crap, till I met a guy in the pub that told me he was a snake catcher and he catches snakes out of peoples gardens, sheds and houses. He also told me that there were allot of taipans around and that I needed to get up early in the morning to find them. He said that the best places to find them were where they are cutting the sugarcane and along the sites of those sugarcane fields. So the next morning I went off to a couple of cane fields and had a look around. I was unfortunate in finding life specimens but I found a around 2 meter long male taipan as road kill. But one thing was for sure they were there. The first three days after that I found nothing, till day four. I was driving to a different spot at when a snake crossed the road, I kicked the breaks and yes this was a taipan. When I stepped out of the car I run towards it and picked it up by the tail, like I was used to at my Elapids at home to my big surprise it was acting like a really pissed of black mamba and it was quit a sport to pin the animal down so I could examined better. After a struggle and sweat poring down my back I finally got it. This was a beautiful 180 cm long female with a pale head and a sort of reddish colour. This was my first taipan I caught and I was more then happy.

I stayed for about 3 weeks in the Mackay area and caught in those weeks 12 Taipans the smallest one was around a 100 cm and the biggest one 210 cm. To my surprise were most of them docile animals and not like people told me. I think when they know there is no way out they give up and et you do what ever you want. At the moment you release them there gone in a second. I also catches a few Taipans in other places in North Queensland. In the Northern Territory I didn’t had any luck but this is because the winter period started.

My next encounter with taipans was in South Australia where I worked as one off the snake milkers at Venom Supplies. Her I worked as well with the Inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotes) and I was really surprised that especially this animal with the name fierce snake are that docile. But they told me that the specimens from Queensland were much more defensive then the ones from the Gooyders Lagoon in South Australia.. When milking taipans for there venom you really notice they have a sort of intelligence, when you were cleaning out there cages or were feeding them they were really laid back, but when you took them to the table were they got milked they shiver all over there bodies. My idea is that they seem to see or recognize the standard where the venom beaker is in and they even get more nervous when they notice the pinner (this is a sort of horizontal bar with a long sort of broom stick on it to grab the snake behind the head).

After I came back in Holland I could only think about keeping this sort of animals in my own collection but this was impossible so I needed to find something else and so I did. Know these days I keep the cousin of the coastal taipan from Australia , this is the subspecies from Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya.

Keeping Taipans:

            As I said before is keeping large Elapids a big responsibility especially Mambas and Taipans. They grow big are nervous, alert and intelligent, all together a difficult animal to keep. In feeding and taking care of these animals there no problems. My experience with feeding these animals in captivity is like feeding Corn snakes, they really eat everything dead or alive. When I come in my snake room with cage full of mice or rats there are only the taipans and the mambas active and crawling around the window to get some diner, they also don’t mind to start with the back of a prey first and are most of the time to lazy to turn there prey around so they can start with the head.

I keep my taipans in enclosures from 175 X 60 X 70 cm (Length/Wide/Height). In the cage there is a big water bowl that can be filled up with 5 litters of water. As substrate I use a mix of different plant or potting soil, tree bark and sand. This I can keep on the right humidity and it is good to absorb faeces. I also use a hiding box to give the animals some rest. The cage is brought on temperature by floor heating for lightning I use a 120 cm neon.

When I need to handle the animals  I just do this by tailing them and keeping them on distance with a hook, after this I pin them to do the head grab. I never use any tubes to treat a animal. For me this makes no sense especially when you need to give them a oral medication or to remove a eye cab that is shucked on the eye after shedding there skin.

For me are taipans great pets. The reason I like them is because they are beautiful, active and have a sort of a personality, this I can only find back in the mamba species that are my second favourite snakes.    

Copyright©2002 Richard Mastenbroek

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This page is not build to stimulate people to keep venomous snakes. All Captive information given on this page is based on own experience