Australia and Antarctica finally broke apart around 100 million years ago. Today, venomous snakes are found in all of these places – apart from Antarctica, where it is too cold for them to live. On the original combined land mass, it is thought that there was a population of ancestral snakes that was venomous.
Due to the country's large landmass, many climates are experienced including equatorial, tropical, subtropical, desert, monsoonal, temperate, and alpine. These differing climates influence Australia's snake distribution and abundance, and provide many different and unique habitats for them.
The common mechanism of evolution is thought to be gene duplication followed by natural selection for adaptive traits. The adaptations produced by this process include venom more toxic to specific prey in several lineages, proteins that pre-digest prey, and a method to track down prey after a bite.
Not only is their venom ranked as the second most toxic of any land snake in the world (based on tests on mice), they thrive in populated areas, particularly on farms in rural areas with mice.
85% of the world's most venomous snakes, including the top three most venomous snakes in the world – the inland taipan snake, the eastern brown snake, and the coastal taipan snake – can be found in Australia.
Introducing the most venomous snake in the world and epic predator of the Australian outback! The inland taipan is otherwise known as the fierce snake or small scaled snake.
"Including the brown, tiger, black, taipan, death adder and certain sea snakes and all these snakes are found in Queensland," Mr Farry said. "Most Australian snake bites are associated with minimal local pain and bite marks can be easily missed."
Australian Box Jellyfish
The box jellyfish is the world's most venomous animal with four species — Chironex fleckeri, Carukia barnesi, Malo kingi, and Chironex yamaguchii — considered highly venomous. The Chironex fleckeri, also known as the Australian box jellyfish is considered the most venomous animal in the world.
The Eastern brown snake is responsible for around 60% of deaths caused by snakebite in Australia.
Australia's largest extant predator is the dingo C. lupus dingo. There is observational evidence that where dingoes are locally abundant, foxes and cats are rare (Newsome 2001; Glen & Dickman 2005). Dingoes kill these smaller predators, and foxes evidently fear and avoid dingoes (O'Neill 2002; Mitchell & Banks 2005).
Tim Friede says he has built up a tolerance to the venom of some of the world's most poisonous snakes - after subjecting himself to 100 bites and injections.
“It is important to note that this resistance is not absolute – we are not immune to cobra venom, just much less likely to die than other primates.” Resistance to cobra venom has a cost – receptors that are resistant to cobra venom don't work quite as well.
This story is perhaps not as uncommon as it may seem, because snakes—like many other reptiles—retain their reflexes even hours after death. The bite reflex is extremely strong in venomous snakes, because their instinct is to deliver one extremely quick bite, move away, and wait for their venom to work.
introduced predators such as foxes, dogs and cats. snakes being run over on roads. the indiscriminate killing of snakes by people who fear or dislike them. Many harmless snakes, and even legless lizards, are killed unnecessarily in this way.
We have noted at Walkabout Park that most kangaroos bitten by snakes are hand-raised kangaroos. We have seen a disproportionately larger number of hand-raised kangaroos bitten, relative to wild raised kangaroos.
New research led by the University of Adelaide has found the first tangible evidence that the ancestors of some of Australia's most venomous snakes arrived by sea rather than by land -- the dispersal route of most other Australian reptiles.
Predators. The species' known predators include birds of prey and feral cats.
The black mamba, for example, injects up to 12 times the lethal dose for humans in each bite and may bite as many as 12 times in a single attack. This mamba has the fastest-acting venom of any snake, but humans are much larger than its usual prey so it still takes 20 minutes for you to die.
Killing snakes
It is an offence under the National Parks and Wildlfe Act to kill or remove a snake from its environment, with fines of up to $10,000 and two years imprisonment enforceable. "The only exception is if a venomous snake is posing a genuine threat to life and safety."
Key statistics
The mortality rate remained low in 2021 (507.2 per 100,000 people). Ischaemic heart disease was the leading cause of death.
Australia and Antarctica finally broke apart around 100 million years ago. Today, venomous snakes are found in all of these places – apart from Antarctica, where it is too cold for them to live. On the original combined land mass, it is thought that there was a population of ancestral snakes that was venomous.
Australia's apex predator, the dingo (Canis dingo) influences the abundance and behaviour of herbivorous prey and mesopredators in arid ecosystems. The dingoes' ecological role is uncertain in more productive forested environments of eastern Australia.
Peter informed me that the "snake" in the above picture actually is a Common Scaly-foot (Pygopus lepidopodus), one of the many Australian legless lizards. Thank you Peter for the information. Snakes can be found all over Australia, not only in the Outback.
Snakes can bite you underwater, but usually only if they're provoked or if they feel threatened. In the Tropical Journal of Medicine and Hygiene, researchers studied 100 sea-snake bite patients who visited a local hospital. They found that over 80% of patients were fishermen who had been in the water.
In Australia, snakes sometimes slither into suburban backyards and homes. When the weather gets warm, they lounge in the sun.