Coastal taipan In his book "Venom", which explores the development of a taipan antivenom in Australia in the 1940s and 1950s, author Brendan James Murray argues that only one person is known to have survived an "Oxyuranus" bite without antivenom: George Rosendale, a Guugu Yimithirr aboriginal bitten at Hope Vale in 1949. Murray writes that Rosendale's condition was so severe that nurses later showed him extracted samples of his own blood that were completely black in colour. Coastal taipan The coastal taipan ("Oxyuranus scutellatus"), or common taipan, is a species of large, extremely venomous snake in the family Elapidae. The species is
Taipan taipans, with the central ranges taipan being an offshoot of the common ancestor of the inland and coastal taipans. Their diets consist primarily of small mammals, especially rats and bandicoots. Species of this genus possess highly neurotoxic venom with some other toxic constituents that have multiple effects on victims. The venom is known to paralyse the victim's nervous system and clot the blood, which then blocks blood vessels and uses up clotting factors. Members of this genus are considered to be among the most venomous land snakes based on their murine , an indicator of the toxicity on mice. The