Inland taipan summer), the darker colour allowing the snake to heat itself while only exposing a smaller portion of the body at the burrow entrance. The eye is of average size with a blackish brown iris and without a noticeable coloured rim around the pupil. It has 23 rows of dorsal scales at midbody, between 55 and 70 divided subcaudal scales, and one anal scale. The inland taipan averages approximately in total length, although larger specimens can reach total lengths of . Its fangs are between 3.5 and 6.2 mm long (shorter than those of the coastal taipan). Inland taipans adapt to
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.