Notechis scutatus - South-West Western Australia

Tiger snakes are found in the wetter regions of the south-west of WA (as well as in other southern states of Australia). They are usually black or brown with either orange or yellow bands. They also have orange or yellow bellies. Sometimes unbanded individuals are found, and they are generally uniformly black or brown, but still have the yellow or orange belly. However, a friend of mine who runs a reptile park occasionally finds completely yellow/gold tigers, as in the pic below. These are quite rare, so I thought I'd post a pic here, together with a banded specimen.

Regards,
Simon

Notechis scutatus - South-West Western Australia Tigers-bandedandgold

Notechis scutatus - South-West Western Australia Tigers-bandedandgold

OMG! Thats yummy Simon. I wish I wish ha ha. Bet they look even better in the flesh, mine look rather ordinary compared to them. Tigers-every1 should have 1.
Notechis scutatus - South-West Western Australia November6th2011138

Notechis scutatus - South-West Western Australia November6th2011138

Hi Simon ;

This is splendid as a species, I did not know, thank you for sharing information and photos.
What is the size they reach an adult, you know ?

Best...

Piero

Tiger snakes are reasonably variable in colour, pattern and size over their range, which is understandable given they occur almost continuously across the south of Australia from east to west, which is more than 2,500kms. For the south-west population, I notice Wikipedia gives a maximum size of 2.0m. I have never seen one larger than 1.5m. However, other populations, such as the Chappell Island tigers, can easly exceed 2.0m. This may be because the adults prey almost exclusively on shearwater chicks ("mutton-birds") during the nesting season, which is relatively short. So they need to eat large chicks and several of them to last the year, hence the tendency to get big. There are "dwarf" populations too, in South Australia. One, which used to be called Krefft's tiger snake, rarely exceeds 1.1m in length.

Hope this is of some interest to you.

Nigel Sowter on this forum keeps just about all forms of tigers and would be able to give you more info I am sure.

Cheers,
S

Hi Simon ;

I thank you for your very complete response.
Hope to read you ..

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