Deadly snakes make surprising house guests for some Aussies
Print Edition
They are the nightmare tenants who can live undetected alongside Australian families: the world’s deadliest snakes.
Australia is home to some of the most venomous species including the lethal eastern brown, which thrive in urban areas where rubbish bins attract prey such as rats and mice.
Sydney snake handler Andrew Melrose says some species even spend winter months comfortably curled up inside warm roofs, until they are disturbed, often by accident.
“Some people really panic, and they are screaming,” says Melrose of the residents who call him for help. “They reckon they are going to sell up and move to a place like New Zealand where there are no snakes.”
The irony is the reptiles have often been living in the house or garden for years.
Often it is only something out of the ordinary — such as a rare day off for the homeowner or a building renovation — that brings the snake to light, Melrose says.
Australia is renowned as being home to a startling number of the world’s deadliest creatures, including a range of venomous snakes, spiders, jellyfish and octopuses that are capable of killing a human within minutes.
Snake deaths are rare, with only an average of one to four each year, in part because the animals shy away from humans.
“Most of the snakes, most of time we don’t see them,” says Ken Winkel, director of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne, who agrees many people live alongside snakes for years without knowing it.
“We are more a threat to Australian snakes than vice versa. In the life of the average Australian, it’s uncommon for them to see a dangerous snake.”
Most fatalities are in rural areas but deaths do occasionally occur in cities.
Winkel cites the case of the elderly woman who died after being bitten by a tiger snake while tending her passion fruit vines in Melbourne’s Kew in 2003, and a 16 year-old boy who panicked and ran after being bitten by a brown snake in Sydney in 2007.
Though not as venomous as the inland taipan — which is only found in remote areas — the most common killer in Australia is the eastern brown snake which exceed 2 meters in length and is found nationwide.
“It’s a very common snake throughout the continent of Australia, combined with the fact that it is not so fussy about what it eats, says Finkel, adding that brown snakes do well in urban habitats.
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