too bad they had to find a 4th species, now I don't have all of them

Terry, what is you favorite among them?
i only have canni but i am in love with them....



cheers
Mario

Call me crazy Terry but isn't it illigal to possess those in the U.S.? Unless they are on loan to a zoo , but still owned buy the austrailian gov't

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@ Terry

Won't You tell me something about the 4th species? Did they find and describe another one again?
I know:
Oxyuranus microlepidotus
Oxyuranus scutellatus
Oxyuranus temporalis
Regards
Peter

Hey guys,
Mario, personally I like the canni the most of them all. They are just incredible.

Timothy, I wouldn't call you crazy. I run a large Reptile Park, Reptile Gardens. www.reptilegardens.com. So trust me these snakes are here legally. There are many O. microlepidotus out of Australia now apparently. I am only aware of 4 actually legal exports of them however. Ours being two of them. Ours are the only legal ones in the U.S. though. And no they are not owned by the Australian Govt. Thats not quite how it works.

Peter,
You are accurate that there are only 3 species, I was referencing the 4th which is a subspecies.
Oxyuranus s. canni

Cheers!
Terry

Well my boss possess 2 Taipans in our exhibit but they are very old. I was just going on the info. provided to me by another source. I dont do much with taipans i stick to arboreals and crotalus, naja, bitis and a few others

In S. Carolina I assume you are at Cape fear serpentarium? and the two would be O.s. canni? I wonder why anyone would quote you that info? Any further details?

Old or not they are very cool snakes.
T-

Hi Terry , does your zoo stock of australian elapids filter into the public once you produce offspring or are there restrictions in place?

Hey Andrew,
There are some pretty strict regulations attached in order to legally export from Australia. So all attention and respect to those restrictions are in place.
Cheers!
Terry

There are no four species actually. Temporalis is the third species that was found. As i remember there is only one holotype available fot this specimen. Papuan taipan belongs to Scutellatus complex. There are two subspecies: Coastal Taipan (Oxyuranus Scutellatus Scutellatus) and Papuan Taipan (Oxyuranus Scutellatus Canni).

Please WW corect me if I'm wrong

Very nice. Canni are my favorite.

I thought Oxyuranus temporalis wasn't really accepted as a valid species. Or am I wrong?

O. temporalis was discriped in 2007 after this I´ve never seen anny news about the no-acceptation or revalidation in one of the other species,of the Genus Oxyuranus? So, I think, it is still avalid species...

http://www.jcvi.org/reptiles/species.php?genus=Oxyuranus&species=temporalis

rgds Fabian

Thanks guys

The website jcvi.org is one of the best websites to look if species are accepted. If jcvi.org says that there is O. temporalis than it will probably be so I didn't knew it was on there so I probably looked over it.

Hi Stefan,
this site is ok, and temporalis is included in the list!

That is just what I said

Amazing snakes.

Benjamin,
In order for them to be legal in the U.S they or their parents must have been legally exported from Australia.

Just because a bunch of Australian species left Australia under less than legal standards and have been "legally laundered" through several European countries doesn't make them legal.

I imported ours legally from Australia, if you are aware of anyone else having done that I would be very interested to hear about it, as I only know of 3. Simply because the Non-commercial agreement (which includes progeny) would be the same on their permit as it is on ours. So all of these Australian species being sold can not legally enter the United States. It would become a violation of the Lacey Act here in the U.S. thus making them illegal.

All specimens from Australia would need an export permit from Australia or be able to trace their origins back to the 1960's and I can guarantee you that microlepidotus was not bred in captivity in the 60's by a zoo.... (it was illegal to privately keep reptiles in AU at that time) Nor were they properly described taxonomically at that time.
So I would be real curious to see how legal specimens are being sold...?

Don't get me wrong, I think the laws are very counter productive to conservation efforts. Putting a value on an animal in captivity is a great conservation tool...but I just don't agree with people violating laws.

Everyone here knows how most Australian species get on the market. It's a shame but true.

Cheers!
Terry

small correction, Rich: Ophiophagus is appendix II, not III.

I understand Terry, he's right with his statement - United States are different to European Countries - because of the Lacey act.
This act is a tool to prosecute violations in wildlive done in foreign countries. As a US resident, you' ll have to proof the legal origin of a australian Taipan, and that's hardly possible in offspring produced in Europe, just because european breeders don't need any papers/proofs (and dont't have'em usually) for microlepidotus as a non Cites species.

Peter