Tonight's contribution is of an adult female Papuan taipan (
Oxyuranus scutellatus canni) having dinner. I acquired this specimen as a wild-caught specimen in October 2003, and had it in my collection for a number of years.
This animal reminds me of a comical story. A good friend of mine, who was also an experienced venomous keeper, had always dreamed of working with taipans. One Summer, he had a few days off, and traveled halfway around the country to visit me. He was so excited to finally get to work with a live taipan for a few days. Due to their speed and toxicity, snakes like taipans and mambas are on the far end of the spectrum, even for experienced elapid keepers, so I let him work up to it by working with other elapids initially. When it was finally time to service the enclosure of the animal picture below, it did what taipans do, and acted like a complete nightmare by leaping across the room at lightning speed, dashing out of the holding container like live wire, and generally being a lethal pain in the butt. I did end up lending a helping hand, but the ordeal was sufficient for him to entirely change his mind about working with taipans. "Never again," he said. We still laugh about that incident these days...
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