Something different - a Western brown snake, Myall snakes and more

 

I was working in a remote mining town in outback NSW for the last couple of weeks, and encountered this beautiful Western brown snake sunning itself by the side of the road late in the afternoon.     

Until recently this species was known as the Western Brown snake, Pseudonaja nuchalis but has now been reclassified as the "Strap-snouted Brown Snake" Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha.  Reclassifying old familiar species seems to be happening ever more frequently, and I'm not sure it's always warranted.  The common name bestowed on this majestic species just doesn't seem fitting to me.  Regardless of what you call them, these are a dangerously venomous species and are extremely fast, defensive and most definitely not to be molested.      

Speaking of interesting snakes, I noticed that Myall snakes, Suta suta were also quite common in the area.  While these inoffensive snakes are venomous, as long as you don't try to pick them up, they are inoffensive and harmless.  If you do pick them up, you had better know what you are doing because they will readily bite, and allegedly they pack a wallop.  

An inoffensive Myall snake alongside my size 14 boot for scale.  The snake ignored me completely, allowing me to take a couple of photos before I moved on, leaving it to its road basking.  The area is so remote that there was little risk from traffic to the snake.  

I also observed several Green tree frogs, numerous Tessellated geckos, several road killed Bearded dragons (sadly, one was a gravid female that left eggs all over the road) and a blind snake on the same night.  I didn't bother to identify the blind snake as you have to handle them to count scales to identify them properly, and they pack a decent defensive stink excretion.      

     

   

Large Eastern brown snake - DOR Cassilis 20/09/2024

It was a perfect Friday afternoon, 20th September 2024.  I had just entered the upper Hunter valley, it was a perfect bluebird sky, 28 degrees C, the 4WD was on cruise control and the traffic was nearly non-existent.  Tex Perkins and the cruel sea were mumbling on about a black stick, and I was in bliss - heading for home after a fortnight working in the dust and flies of a remote mining town.  I noticed a very solid elapid on the road verge, and hoped it would still be there when I turned the vehicle around . . .   

I guess you should be careful what you wish for - because unfortunately he was still there - dead as a doornail - right on the side line of the road.  

Notice the head is fairly similar to the size of the neck? It's been run-over by a car, so it's a little deformed, and this is a large, quite old adult specimen. If it was a smaller snake, it's head would be a lot more "delicately-built".

In life, if this snake was really defensive (and it doesn't take much to make an Eastern brown snake VERY defensive), it would flatten it's neck out quite a lot - which gives rise to the name of it's genus - "Pseudonaja".  By the way, "Naja" is the genus for cobras - hence it is quite well described as a "pseudo-cobra".  Pretty good description, because its hood looks a little like a cobra when it's really, really annoyed, except our Brown snakes are about 1,000 times faster, more deadly and vastly more agile than a cobra.      

       

Here's what the ventral surface looks like - the yellow belly with orange spots is fairly characteristic of Eastern brown snakes.  

Final point - the red flesh protruding from the snakes' anus above is not intestine - they are hemipenes - yes - male snakes have two penises.  Lizards do too.  If you zoom in on the hemipene on the top, you can clearly see the barbs and spikes on his manhood - similar to a domestic tom-cats'. 

So in closing, this was a very large, very old male Eastern brown snake.  A wild guess, he would have been around 20 years of age, and a real survivor.  Such a sad way for a magnificent animal to end his days.