'Secret' Snake Discovered In WA

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Thanks Jonno, very interesting information.

Amazing there can be populations so separated . It appears there are no populations here on the Sunshine Coast but plenty north of Gympie, about 80 kms away and hundreds of kms south at Grafton.

Spent a few days camping down near Grafton one winter. Much colder than the Sunshine Coast. Our water bucket froze solid. These southern taipans would have a different life to their northern relatives.
 
G'day Woma,

They are on the Sunshine Coast. One was found at Coolum Beach last year. They are incredibly rare and incredibly elusive though. I have put in literally thousands of hours of searching in the Brisbane Valley and come up empty handed, despite having exact GPS data. If you do a search, you'll find a thread I posted with photo's of some SEQ Taipans...one from near Fernvale, one from a little west of Samford and another from just outside of SEQ near Gladstone.

Kin Kin near Gympie is a "hotspot" for Taipans, or at least was. David Fleay collected quite a few from that area. Neil Charles has found several in the Brisbane Valley, but that was between 10 and 35 years ago. Also, after the dam was built out there, there was one or two a year found dead on the roads.
 
Jonno you need to write a book about this. Your adventures and depth of knowledge would make great reading.
 
Jonno you need to write a book about this. Your adventures and depth of knowledge would make great reading.

Give me a few more decades and I might consider it...Coastal Taipans are just a passion of mine, so my brain is like a sponge whenever I hear any info about them...you've got to have your own information to write a book, not everyone elses haha!
 
Jonno, they're my favorite elapids too. I'll be "shooting" taipans around Jelatten over the next two months - it'll be great, there are still some spots where they're in good numbers. I am just waiting for those cold, sunny mornings. Nev Burns is coming up too.
 
G'day mate,

Is there a spare seat in your car? We received two freshly wild caught 1.8 metre males from Julatten...they aren't the prettiest of Taipans but I'm guessing there's only one thing that beats the rush of unbagging a freshly caught Taipan, and that's catching one.

I look forward to seeing your photo's mate.
 
Gee, I didn't know the QPWS were allowing taking from the wild. Was it for demos or venom?
There wll be a spare seat but I prefer to work alone. It's never easy to get close enough to taipans for a good shot and the more people, the less chance. Nev just wants to re-visit some old hunting grounds, so we do Julatten, Tully Gorge and few other places.
 
Gee, I didn't know the QPWS were allowing taking from the wild. Was it for demos or venom?
There wll be a spare seat but I prefer to work alone. It's never easy to get close enough to taipans for a good shot and the more people, the less chance. Nev just wants to re-visit some old hunting grounds, so we do Julatten, Tully Gorge and few other places.

The snakes were collected under a harvest permit for venom production. Good luck finding some, I love seeing wild Taipans.
 
there is a rich pocket of coastal taipans at turkey beach,about 40 minutes south of Gladstone as well.i'd also go as far as saying that i have seen as many ,if not more taipans than eastern browns in the turkey beach area,where as only a handful pop up in Gladstone, but we get hundreds of eastern browns.
cheers
simon
 
Speaking of taking from the wild, I'm surprised DEC didn't find some to send east. (yes I'm still bitter we can't keep RSP and the whole saga that goes with it!)
 
Wow! this is incredible. I find it so exciting that we are still discovering new species. Australia is a vast continent and so much of it is still untouched. who knows what else might be out there! the article says that the venom toxicity of this new Taipan is yet unknown, I wonder could it be more toxic than that of the Inland Taipan?
 
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