The Eastern brown snake, commonly known as the common brown snake, is a medium-sized snake. They are poisonous snakes that belong to the Elapidae family and are vigilant, fast-moving, and extremely venomous.
Eastern brown snakes may grow up to 78.7 inches (200 cm) in length as adults. This snake is known to be the world’s second most poisonous snake. Their scales are shiny and smooth.
They are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs. They are endemic to New Guinea’s south coast, as well as central, eastern, and southern Australia.
The zoologists Gabriel Bibron, Andre Marie Constant Dumeril, and Auguste Dumeril described this species for the first time in 1854. Eastern brown snakes are slim and brown to dark brown in color.
These snakes come in a variety of colors, including tan, olive, russet, and orange. They are accessible in Australia and are bred in captivity.
People can misunderstand these snakes’ protective behaviors as aggressiveness. This species is related to the Taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus) and Mulga snake (Pseudechis australis).
They may reach a length of 2 meters and survive for up to seven years. Predators of this snake include feral cats, birds of prey, and red-bellied black snakes.
They can be found in human environments, just as they may be found in agricultural grounds with house mice. These snakes are the second most commonly reported envenoming dogs in New South Wales.
Adult snakes are russet, orange, tan to olive in color, dark gray-brownish to blackish in color, or light to dark brown in color. Snakes in the south are smaller than snakes in the north.
They have orange eyes that are medium in size. This snake’s pupil has an orange or yellow-brown ring around it, and its iris is black.
The western and northern brown snakes have black skin inside their mouths, but the eastern brown snake has flesh pink skin.
Another distinguishing feature of these species is the quantity and placement of scales on their bodies. The anal scales of these Australian snakes are split, and the subcaudal scales are divided 45-75 times.
They contain 17 rows of dorsal scales at the midbody and ventral scales ranging from 192-231. Around the mouth, they have six supralabials and typically seven sublabial scales.
Their nasal scales aren’t always evenly distributed and occasionally are. Around the eyes, they have two to three postocular scales.
Mammalian and vertebrate prey are eaten by these Australian brown snakes.
Snakes with longer snout-vent lengths eat more warm-blooded food, whereas those with shorter snout-vent lengths eat more ectothermic species (lizards).
They have excellent vision and aggressively hunt for prey in hiding spots. They kill by injecting poison into the prey and choking it.
Heaths of coastal ranges, farmlands, arid scrublands, inner grasslands, and dry sclerophyll forests are all part of the eastern brown snake’s habitat.
This common brown snake may be found in alpine environments, open habitats, and urban fringes. Because these brown snakes eat rodents, they like to congregate around homes and fields.
