Identifying Snakes

The Queensland Museum publications Wildlife of Greater Brisbane and Wildlife of Tropical North Queensland are useful.

Photographs and desciptive text in these and other guide books provide aids to the identification of snakes. However, it is important to remember that colour on its own is not a reliable guide. Snakes vary in colour and pattern both within and between species.

Variation in colour can make reliable identification difficult. For example, Red-bellied Blacks and the Small-eyed Snakes are black above and red below; Eastern Brown Snakes and Taipans can be brown above and have cream bellies with orange or pink flecks.

If in doubt, contact the Queensland Museum (07 3840 7555) regarding identification (in Queensland and northern New South Wales only). If someone has been bitten, first aid should be applied, and medical authorities contacted, before a museum expert is asked for an identification.

Snakes reach adult size quickly and then grow slowly. Sizes given on this site and in museum publications are the adult averages for each species.

When identifying a snake, a museum expert will usually refer to scale details.

Identifications can be made from dead snakes and shed skins. Live specimens should not be handled. Scales are most useful in identification. The number of rows of scales around the middle of the body (the midbody scales) should be counted, starting and finishing at (but not including), the large row of belly scales. (Because of their arrangement, scales should be counted along a diagonal or in a zigzag.) The scale in front of the cloaca (the anal scale) will be either single or divided, as are the large scales from the cloaca to the tip of the tail (the subcaudals). (Occasionally, both single and paired subcaudals are present.)