Inland taipan was his friend John Robinson, bitten while cleaning the inland taipan's cage at his reptile display on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. He weathered the bite without antivenom but sustained considerable muscle damage as well as heart damage. Almost all positively identified inland taipan bite victims have been herpetologists handling the snakes for study or snake handlers, such as people who catch snakes to extract their venom, or keepers in wildlife parks. All were treated successfully with antivenom. No recorded incidents have been fatal since the advent of the monovalent (specific) antivenom therapy, though it can take weeks to recover from
Coastal taipan is exceeded in length among venomous snakes only by the Asiatic king cobra, African black mamba, and genus "Lachesis" (bushmasters) of the American neotropics. The head of the coastal taipan is long and narrow like that of the African black mamba ("Dendroaspis polylepis"), but without the "coffin" shape. The two species are strongly convergent in several aspects of morphology, ecology and behaviour. "O. scutellatus" has an angular brow and is lighter-coloured on the face. The body is slender and colouration can vary. It is often uniformly light olive or reddish-brown in colour, but some specimens may be dark gray to