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Oxyuranus

File:FierceSnakeOlive.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ852348· pop 43· linked from 62 articles

Also known as taipan, taipans

Taipans are snakes of the genus Oxyuranus in the elapid family. They are large, fast-moving, extremely venomous, and endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Three species are recognised, one of which, the coastal taipan, has two subspecies. Taipans are some of the deadliest known snakes.

OverviewAI-generated

Oxyuranus is a genus of reptiles within the family Elapidae. It belongs to the order Squamata, class Chordata, and kingdom Animalia. The taxon was described by Kinghorn in 1923 and holds an accepted status in biological classification.

The genus has 1195 recorded occurrences in global biodiversity databases. It is referenced by 62 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 21 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, Gbif Occ, WoRMS, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

GENUS

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassSquamata
  4. OrderSquamata
  5. FamilyElapidae
Observations recorded1,195

via GBIF

Wikidata facts

Instance of
taxon
Parent taxon
Elapidae
Image
FierceSnakeOlive.jpg
Show 6 more facts
taxon rank
genus
taxon name
Oxyuranus
Commons category
Oxyuranus
topic's main category
Category:Oxyuranus
Commons gallery
Oxyuranus
taxon author citation
Kinghorn, 1923
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~5 min read

Encyclopedic overview

8 sections
Contents
  • Taxonomy
  • Species
  • Diet
  • Venom
  • See also
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

Taipans are snakes of the genus Oxyuranus in the elapid family. They are large, fast-moving, extremely venomous, and endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Three species are recognised, one of which, the coastal taipan, has two subspecies. Taipans are some of the deadliest known snakes.

==Taxonomy== The common name, taipan, was coined by anthropologist Donald Thomson after the word used by the Wik-Mungkan Aboriginal people of central Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. The Wik-Mungkan people used the name in reference to an ancestral creator being in Aboriginal Australian mythology known as the Rainbow Serpent.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Oxyuranus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (4)