Taipan process on the arch of the palate, which Kinghorn noted separated the genus from all other elapids. The three known species are: the coastal taipan ("Oxyuranus scutellatus"), the inland taipan ("Oxyuranus microlepidotus"), and a recently discovered third species, the Central Ranges taipan ("Oxyuranus temporalis"). The coastal taipan has two subspecies: the coastal taipan ("O. s. scutellatus"), found along the northeastern coast of Queensland, and the Papuan taipan ("O. s. canni"), found on the southern coast of Papua New Guinea. A 2016 genetic analysis showed that the speckled brown snake was an early offshoot of a lineage giving rise to 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.