History & Discovery
Australia's two taipans (the Coastal Taipan, Oxyuranus scutellatus, and the Western Taipan, O. microlepidotus) would have shared a common ancestor, probably in Pleistocene (1 million years before the present), possibly Pliocene (5 mybp) times.
Both would have been known to the Aboriginal peoples some 40,000-60,000 years ago and both are well known to them today.
Aboriginal stories record both species. The Wikmunkan People from western Cape York Peninsula knew of :
the rivalry between the Blue-tongued lizard and Taipan their death struggle [their fight] over their search for the same food, namely the parrots, which were gathering honey from the fallen blossoms
and that
[the] power of destruction has made Taipan the arbiter of life and death. If he points a bone, a man dies. But he can also cure, for he controls the blood supply, the loss of which causes death . He gave blood to mankind, and wields power over the physiological processes of men and women He is the great physician.
The Coastal Taipan was also well known by the Dyirbal People whose country included the area where Tully, north-eastern Queensland, is today. Gunjjiwurru, as it was called, was known to be deadly.
To the Aboriginal people from the place now called Goyder's Lagoon, north-east South Australia, Dandarabilla was the snake now known as the Western Taipan. Mrs Linda Crombie of Birdsville (a traditional owner of the Goyder's Lagoon area) has placed on the written record the following account of Dandarabilla.
An old lady was coming up Goyder's Lagoon way. She met an old man who had with him some snakes in a bag. He gave her the bag in exchange for some strings made of hair. The bag was not tied up properly and her little boy, who was being carried in a hair shoulder bag, was bitten by a snake. The old lady knew that the little boy should have cried to be fed because he would be hungry for the breast around lunch-time, but he didn't. The old lady looked in the bag and found he was dead, poor little fella.
She came from Mount Gayson. She came past Toowell, past Putabutna. Went straight pass Kulpitaboolta, got to Yapawarrilina, and that's where she buried her little boy, then she came down to lagoon waterhole. She started to collect wood and cry at the same time, when a needle bush poked in the eye. She was blind for awhile. She then went home to Duck Egg Sandhill where she left some duck eggs. She flew back to lagoon waterhole where she tipped all the snakes out on the ground. She went back to Coongie and stayed there until her death.
The first Coastal Taipan to come to the attention of western science was collected in 1866 near Rockhampton, central Queensland, by an intrepid German collector, Amalie Dietrich. It was described in 1867, by Dr Wilhelm Peters, Berlin.
The Western Taipan was described by Dr Fredrick McCoy in 1879. For close to 100 years virtually nothing was added to knowledge of this species. It was, for practical purposes, 'lost'. No more specimens were discovered. No information on its occurrence, behaviour or venom properties was published.
It was rediscovered, literally by accident.