Coastal taipan where the maximum winter temperature is below . The second subspecies ("Oxyuranus scutellatus canni" ) is found throughout the island of New Guinea, with higher concentrations of the snake being found in the nation of Papua New Guinea. The coastal taipan can be found in a variety of different habitats. It can be found in warm, wetter temperate to tropical coastal regions, in monsoon forests, wet and dry sclerophyll forests and woodlands, and in natural and artificial grassy areas, including grazing paddocks and disused rubbish tips. In Queensland, it has adapted well to sugarcane fields, where it thrives on the
Coastal taipan being bitten, but the average is around 2.5 hours. The time between a bite and death depends on various factors such as the nature of the bite and the constitution of the victim. Untreated bites have a mortality rate of 100% as the coastal taipan always delivers a fatal dose of venom (an average bite delivers 10-12x the lethal dose of venom for a human adult male), and medical professionals recommend that victims seek immediate medical attention even for apparently minor bites. Before the introduction of specific antivenom by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in 1956, nearly all bites were fatal.