A King Brown Pseudechis australis in the backyard

A dead King Brown Pseudechis australis

We’d seen this young King Brown around the yard for a few days after the recent big rains. The neighbours had laid some sheets of tin along the fence line to stop their dog digging from their yard to ours and this has made a very attractive place for a young snake like this one to make a home for itself.

We kept an eye out for it but hadn’t seen it around for a few days until we saw one of the dogs playing with it – by the time we got to it the dogs had killed it – haven’t quite worked out yet whether the dogs are brave or stupid or both. Even though this is a young snake it would have easily accounted for any of our dogs. Maybe it is just a dog thing…an ingrained response to kill snakes.

King Brown snakes are members of the family Elapidae - the 90 or so species of ‘front-fanged’ snakes that make up the largest group of Australian land snakes – thankfully most are small and inoffensive and spend their days concentrating on killing the small lizards and birds that form the larger part of their diet. I put that in just to allay the fears of the odd tourist who might think that there are man-eating snakes in Australia.

But don’t get too relaxed – as the excellent A Complete Guide to Reptiles of Australia (Wilson & Swann, 2005, New Holland – though there is a new CSIRO edition for 2008) says of our venomous snakes generally:

…some of Australia’s terrestrial elapids are among the world’s most lethal snakes, and many thrive on the edges of our towns & cities.

And of the King Brown, it:

May be encountered in virtually all subhumid to arid habitats throughout its range…Shelters in any terrestrial sites available; abandoned burrows, soil cracks or hollow logs.

Out here in the southern fringes of the Tanami Desert the Warlpiri people have a special regard for the King Brown, which has various names. As Kirrkirr, the interactive Warlpiri dictionary notes:

All poisonous snakes are classed as warna with the King Brown being the prototypical warna. This term is also extended to cover all snakes and snake-like reptiles. Poisonous snakes, warna in its narrow sense, are not considered edible, while most pythons are considered to be edible and hence classed as kuyu.

A more specific Warlpiri name for the King Brown is lingka, another is ngatijirri-muku-ngarnu – literally ‘eater-of-all-the-budgerigars‘ – a reference to the snake’s penchant for budgerigar nestlings:

Kala lingka, jurntu-ngawurrpa, wirijarlu, ngalyaju kardirri, kirrirdimpayi-nyayirni ka nyina. Ngatijirri-muku-ngarnu yirdi nyanunguju. Ngatijirri kujakajana muku ngarni. Yani ka, purda-nyanyi kajana yangka – wangkanjakurrarlangu, ngatijirri wita-wita, jangkardujana warrkarni – wurrkalirlangurla, wapurnungkurla, wilypirirlaju, kankarlarra warrkarni, linjirlangurla, walyururla yangka watiyarla, ngapirirla, wurrkalirla, wapurnungkurla, warrkarni – wilypirirla yukami mulyu – mukujana ngarni yangkaju wita-wita ngatijirri, ngulaju witawangu lingkaju nyina. Ngalyaju kardirri. Witawangu. Kuluparntajala yapakuju ka nyina – kajika pinyi. Nantuwurlangu kajika yarlkirni manu puluku, tarnngakurra, palimi kalu ngulajangkaju malikirlanguju, yika yangka yarlkirni, tarnnga, warnakuju ka nyina. Kamparrujuku wiri. Kirrirdimpayi. Manu wantiki yangka wiri. Lingka, jurntu-ngawurrpa ka nyina – yapurnuwana ka nyina. Yapurnu-ngawurrpa. Lingkaji. Manu yangka pirliwanarlangu ramarrawana ka nyina – walyapitipiti.

As for the King Brown, it is a limestone country dweller. It is very large with a light coloured band across the forehead. It is very long indeed. Eater-of-all-the-budgerigars is another name for the King Brown since it eats the budgerigars. He goes along and then hears the budgerigars chirping. He then climbs up to get at them in a bloodwood tree, for example, or in a ghost gum, in a hollow, he climbs up high in dry trees or live trees, in river red gums, bloodwoods, ghost-gums, he climbs. He puts his mouth into the hollow and then eats up all the little budgerigars. That King Brown is really very big. Its forehead is pale. It is big. It is actually dangerous for people if it bites. It can inflict a fatal bite on horses and bullocks, say; dogs die from it biting them. It is bigger than other snakes. It is very long. It is big and broad. The King Brown is a limestone country dweller. It also lives around salt lakes. It is a salt lake dweller. The King Brown. And it lives on the hill-sides and foothills.

With the warmer weather and goods rains we’ll be seeing a lot more Lingkas around – plus a few more Jutiyas (the Desert Death Adders I wrote about recently – of which we’ve seen two in the last week) and also some of the pythons that are relatively common – and valued as a food source by locals – including the beautiful Stimson’s and Woma Pythons.

Got a venomous (or any) snake story…share it with us!