Local women on the way to work in the garden walk along a track through towering kunai and spear grass.

Taipan Territory

Taipans absolutely thrive in the lowlands of southern Papua New Guinea, and with good reasons ...

Much of the landscape is carpeted with towering grasslands that are both an impenetrable refuge and a living pantry of rodents and small marsupials that make up the diet of these nervous, fast-moving snakes.

The local people carve large tracts out amid these grasslands for use as garden areas, and since the use of herbicides and pesticides is unheard of, rodent populations are huge. Garden beds are honeycombed with rat and mouse burrows, and lots of taipans live in these ready-made shelters, gorging themselves on the furry occupants.

It's just a shame that so many people end up being bitten when they either dig up unsuspecting snakes in the gardens, or encounter them on the narrow paths through the grass.

Bikpela Moran tru!

As well as taipans, the towering grasses give shelter to many other species, including this 4.5 metre Papuan python (Apodora papuana) with its two-tone greenish colour scheme.

These snakes grow to more than 5 metres in length, and the largest of them are as formidable as an equivalently-sized African rock python (Python sebae) in terms of temper and strength.

Papuan pythons often frequent animal burrows, and many of the local people fear them as potential man-eaters! Everyone seems to know of a distant cousin, wantok or neighbouring villager who was eaten by one, but properly documented records are yet to turn up.

On the other hand, many, many of these beautiful snakes end up in village cooking fires, and they are surprisingly quite tasty!

Down to business ...

On our first afternoon in Moreguina, the three of us set out on a walk around the outskirts of town in the hope of spotting something on the move, and we were not disappointed ...

Wolfgang and I both watched as a long shadow stretched slowly across the road in the distance ... reality slowly dawning.

While Ronelle picked up our hastily doffed backpacks, hats and snake bags, we sprinted to the spot where our "shadow" had just disappeared into the maze of rat burrows among the roadside grass, cursing the escape of our quarry, but thrilled to have confirmation that taipans were active in the vicinity.

A change of luck ...

The following morning we set out again on foot to visit all of the spots where I had seen or caught taipans in the past.

An hour into the morning found us rummaging around a yard full of steel construction gear. In no time we made our first capture - a blue tongued skink (Tiliqua spp.). Released out of harms way we kept at it, as the scorching sun rose higher overhead...

I was looking around a huge pile of steel posts when I discovered a recently sloughed piece of skin that got us all excited. 

With the help of local teenagers we carefully cut back the long grass around the stack (see left) and prepared to systematically work our way through the metal until we either came up empty handed, or found the owner of the slough.

Working in twos we carefully lifted and moved each length of steel to a new stack we started metres away. At the time we really didn't give much thought to the many bare feet belonging to our team of volunteers - after all, everyone knows that 99% of the time you come up empty-handed chasing taipans.

In retrospect, and especially looking at these photographs I can't help but be horrified by just where people where standing. 

We were half-way through the stack when one of the local lads yelled that he had seen a snake in a gap between the bottom two rows of steel, and with Wolfgang guarding the opposite side for an escapee, I came around, got down on my knees and putting my face up to the gap peered in ... 

To say I was surprised to see a very large and very angry taipan staring straight back at me would be an understatement in the least!

The biggest danger now was that the snake might shoot out from its hiding place and end up among all those bare-footed helpers that were standing around to watch the action, so I decided to use Wolfgang's grabstick and try to grab the snake before it decamped. Everything went very smoothly as I gently pushed the tongs inside ... right up to when I grabbed the snake ... which promptly shot straight towards my very vulnerable face ... stopping short inches from the end of my nose, hissing violently and flexing its jaws with serious intent...

To make matters worse, the snake was inching itself free of the grabstick with apparent ease ... so I was somewhat relieved when it turned and started to emerge off to one side, because it gave me time to release it from the grab, remove the stick, and take a new grip on the snake ... lifting it clear and then pinning it as locals cheered and screamed their rather muddled congratulations and terror in the background.

Double the luck ...

With our desperately needed taipan in the bag, and after much backslapping and self-congratulation, we turned back to the last layer of the steel pile and decided that since we were there we may as well finish moving the last 15-18 pieces.

To say that we weren't surprised to lift the very first piece of the bottom layer to uncover the copper-red back of yet another large taipan would be an understatement ... that the snake found itself up off the ground and safely into a hoopbag before Ronelle could even turn on the video camera says a lot for our ability not to look a gift horse in the mouth...

"A man has to know his limitations ..."

Back at the health centre where we were staying, preparations were made to use an empty building to remove the snakes from their bags and extract the first venom samples.

With an audience safely looking in through the windows from the outside, I lifted the first snake out of its bag with the tongs, tailed it and bent to pin its head to the floor with a foam-padded snake hook ... 

The snake exploded with rage.

For the next 10 minutes I held onto the tail and used the hook as a shield while our captive went completely berserk ... biting everything it came into contact with and trying desperately to get free, before I finally managed to pin its head successfully and bring it over to Ronelle who held the parafilm-covered venom collection tube.

With vicious efficiency it stabbed its entire head down and through the parafilm membrane, biting savagely on the side of the container as two thin jets of viscous fluid ran down the sides...

After the snake was safely bagged, we moved to the second animal, and deciding against a repeat of the first little adventure, pinned the snake inside the bag, held it through the cloth, and milked it safely in a matter of minutes.

In over 30 years as a herper, I have to say that I have never been so frightened by an animal as I was that day ... we were 250 kilometres from Port Moresby, and a bite from that snake would undoubtedly have been especially unpleasant.

Later that afternoon, as we relaxed on the veranda outside, Wolfgang turned and finally made the most intelligent comment of the trip...

"Dave, a man has to know his limitations ... and I just met mine."

Ronelle Welton pipetting venom from freshly milked Papuan taipans

Venom collected from our taipans was buffered and frozen in a solar-powered freezer, and then brought back to Port Moresby.

With the approval of Papua New Guinea's conservation authorities the material was exported to Australia where it is being used by Ronelle in comparative proteomics studies of Oxyuranus spp. venoms.

Ultimately the new knowledge obtained from these studies may improve the management of snakebite in Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya.

This work would not have been possible without the assistance we received during our trip to PNG from people of all walks of life who extended nothing but friendship and generosity, often far beyond what we could possibly have imagined.

Living the high life ...

After a long day, we settled in for a delicious home-cooked dinner: boiled rice, aibika, freshly baked damper and sweet potato.

The local market kept us well supplied with vegetables, fruit and kulau, and when we weren't cooking our own food we were enjoying beautifully cooked meals brought around to us by local people, who all wanted talk about snakes and get to know the three "Dimdims" (crazy people) who had come to catch them.

Milking a Papuan taipan for venom research. The fangs are concealed by fleshy sheaths that retract as the snake bites.

When a PMV back to Port Moresby failed to materialize, Chris Tep, a PNG Highlander working in Moreguina kindly volunteered to drive us all the way back ... You're a champion Chris!!