Eastern Brown Snake
S1, Juvenile
Eastern Brown Snake
S6, Adult, Killing Shingleback
Animals
Plants
Info
| Eastern Brown Snake S1, Juvenile | | Eastern Brown Snake S6, Adult, Killing Shingleback | | ||
Animals Plants Info |
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Chordates (Chordata) - Reptiles (Reptilia) | ||||||||||||
| Order: | Scaled Reptiles (Squamata) | |||||||||||||
| Family: | Venomous snake (Serpentes: Elapidae) iNaturalist Observation | |||||||||||||
| Species: | Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis)| This Photo: | S2, Adult, head | Thank you Connor Margetts for identifying and Matt Campbell (MattCampbellAUS), Ralph Foster, Mark Hura, Asimakis Patitsas, James Nankivell, Adam Brice & Michael Jacobi for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Adelaide Hills and elsewhere S6 shows an Eastern Brown Snake, eating an Eastern Shingleback (Tiliqua rugosa ssp aspera). This sequence was taken over 35 minutes. The shingleback was a very small one. We estimate the snake was about 1.5m long. We were surprised it seemed to be using a python like mechanism to kill it's prey. We believe this will sustain the snake for over a month. HD, who used to keep Brown Snakes, observed "They generally killed by constricting and invenomated to assist digestion." Oskar Schiller kindly shared his expertise by saying "To shed some light on the coiling seen by the eastern brown here, it is quite common. Unlike other elapids the eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) is commonly seen to use this technique along with utilizing venom. My understanding is that it is a failsafe plan to ensure that the prey cant run away into an inaccessible location or harm/injure the snake before the venom can take effect. In addition the eastern brown seen is quite large in comparison to the small shingleback as you outlined so I would be surprised if it couldn't give an envenomating bite as they are known predators of the species."
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