Very unusual elapid i had to ID

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$NaKe PiMp

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well received a late night phonecall for the company i work for sydney snake catchers,from a vet regarding a snake that a german shepard was running around the backyard with in its mouth,and it was no small snake but a very burley black colored snake 1.5m long.The dog wouldnt drop it as requested from owners and got heavily worked up and down the side of its face/neck as you can imagine and the dog was now in critical condition and had received 2 vials of polyvalent antivenom. The snake had been killed or i should say put out of its misery with a shovel,which is a shame but it had received some very bad wounds from dog.
They showed pics of the snake to vet who could not id it so they contacted me and sent the pics.It looked like a large black snake but had absolutely no pigmentation apart from black anywhere on its body and looked like a chappel island tiger if anything it was so robust.It did have creamy colour between the ventral scales but apart from that all black.
The snake was in cambeltown i also have the exact GPS coordinates where it was found and i asked the people to bring it to me to lookat as there dog was being treated for Black snake envenomation and we wanted to know exactly what it was i was very curious.
They drove about 1 hour to get to me and presented the snake well actually bits of snake would be a better description.I was amazed as it appeeared very much a very robust Pseudechis but had no red belly whatsover not a sceric but black with a snall ammount of white between each ventral scale. I straight awaydid a scale count mid body and it was 17 scales,opposed to 19 scales would be a spotted black Pseudechis guttatus,it had divided anal scale and its head scalation matched Pseudechis porphyriacus also.
I have heard of and seen colour variations of this species but none as unusual as this one,many people have claimed to have seen but hardly ever seem to be able to produce pictures as proof.
so heres the pics of the all black Pseudechis porphyriacus,sorry about the dammage was a shame i would of love to have seen this specimen alive.

Blackbelly14.jpg

the whole snake
blackbelly6.jpg

underside of tail is usually grey up to vent then coloured from vent forward. i popped hemipenes
Blackbelly7.jpg


Blackbelly4.jpg

side on view of upper ventrals and dorsal scales
Blackbelly13.jpg

ventrals
31032011502.jpg

head scalation
31032011504.jpg


RIP Beautiful snake
 
top Pseudechis porphyriacus just unlucky day for it i guess. It would be great to find a specimen like this alive
 
at first I thought...well, at least it wasn't TOO messed up...until I saw the last photo!
Gosh, poor thing :\

perhaps it's just blood, but in the last photo you can see slight red colouration?

Pity you didn't get to it alive

a very beautiful snake despite it all
 
Hi Rob,

An unfortunate end to a very pretty snake. I owned one for a couple of years, it was originally on display at the Big Pineapple.
 
yea that slight red.. is blood :( i sort of put it together for shots the best way i could.such a shame but the dog was given $7000 worth of veterinary care and still died,however the owners had never seen a snake before in there backyard and there dog had not attacked anything before,it was a German Shepard not one of those stupid foxys that constantly kill anything that moves.

it was a rare speciman in magnificent body condition,besides the obvious
 
There is photos of one in a collection floating around here I think
 
That thing looks so lethal and stealthy. Shame it was killed.

Any news on the dog?
 
sorry if this has all ready been stated but what is the common name of that snake ?

RIP poor thing :(
 
nice animal, id like an all black one but white ones are nicer


they can lose the red before sloughing, and they fade considerably with age.
 

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white is nice ive seen pics of white bellies,i havent seen any all black though
 
Wow I'm yet to see a rrb I haven't thought was amazing. That white one is beyond amazing I love it.
 
wow! what an amazing looking animal tigercoastal, is it very old??

Shame about the dead snake, at least it was put out of it's suffering though - assuming the bite wound was severe of course.
I've seen white and more what I would call pink then red, but never all black
 
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