Talk:List of fatal snake bites in Australia

'Tasmania'
A quick google suggests that there were deaths post the 1940's in Tassie. My parents both remember a woman who died in the bush as she was too embarrassed to admit she was bitten whilst going to the toilet. Google suggests this was 1966. I don't have enough to edit the page, but wanted to highlight the inaccuracy for future reference. Cached (talk) 11:30, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

'Unprovoked'
Checking a couple of the cites, I find nothing in those stories either way on whether the attacks were 'unprovoked'. --GenericBob (talk) 01:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Here here, I propose changing the title as it is miss leading and wrong. More like snake defence. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 23:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I lived on Kangaroo Island for 15 years in a place where it is crawling with tiger snakes and pygmy copperheads. I was the author of the pictures of Austrelaps Labialis in this encyclopedia. I came across dozens of snakes and not one could be described as aggressive. Nevertheless I was almost bitten a number of times. This was mostly because a snake can't punch you in the nose if you step on it. My dog could sense them (smell perhaps) and just hopped over them. He died of old age not snake bite. I couldn't sense them as well and had my heart try to jump out of my mouth a few times when one struck at me. In the circumstances I don't blame them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Euc (talk • contribs) 14:10, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Too many exceptions. Just list the fatalities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.81.81.85 (talk) 17:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Length of fangs
Since the venom of many Australian snakes is spread predominantly in the lymphatic system but is oxidised in the blood stream, injection just under the skin is an advantage. The short length of fangs should not be taken as indicating bites are any less dangerous. Larger victims of snakebite (like humans) can take hours to die but, without treatment, death is inevitable. This is one of the reasons the venom of Australian snakes is so disgustingly toxic.

As members of Elapidae, fixed, and therefore short, fangs requires venom to be a lot more toxic to compensate so that prey species can’t run away before they are consumed. This is particularly the case for the inland taipan (Oxyuranus Microlepidotus). It would be a particular disadvantage if an envenomed mouse could run 30 metres across a hot and scorching desert before it died.

If you are bitten walking through the bush anywhere in Australia, you are in a lot of trouble.

Euc (talk) 14:59, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

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90s Fatal snake bite on the River Murray possibly Berri
I remember one in the paper from back then as its very memorable. The man saw a snake swimming across the river towards the central part of town and children etc where playing on the shore. So he swam out to cut the snake off and scare it back across the river! The snake did not take kindly to this and the man would have been bitten multiple times. Maybe the death was recorded as drowning or heart attack before the venom had a chance to kill him? --SnakesAreGreat (talk) 11:27, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Clarification of inclusion criteria; removal of ambiguous "unprovoked"
The criteria for inclusion in this list, and the use of the term "unprovoked", has been ambiguous and/or confusing since the day this list was created in 2009. Several attempts to clarify the inclusion criteria over the years have failed to succeed, and there are several entries indicating someone was handling a snake at the time of the bite and many where there was no handling.

The list was created in 2009 with the criteria "is a list of fatal, unprovoked snake attacks" yet today it reads "omits snake bite-related deaths where the actual cause of death was an unprovoked snake bite", which is the complete opposite!

It seems there are several ways someone gets bitten: completely unawares (e.g. steps on a snake), while capturing it deliberately (for research or collection or otherwise), or handling an already-captured snake for curiosity, entertainment, or legitimate care, collection or research. I assert that all reasons for death by snake bite should be included in the list and for that reason I have modified the inclusion criteria. (See WP:LISTCRITERIA.) If anyone truly objects, then they should correct the matter CLEARLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY, and edit the list accordingly. I will be correcting, enhancing, and adding several entries today. Normal Op (talk) 19:53, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Australian herpetologist requested to check snake species
I am NOT a snake person, nor am I Australian, and do not have the expertise to pinpoint some of the specific snakes mentioned in the references. For example, there seems to be two Tiger snakes: Notechis scutatus and Notechis ater. And then there is the term "brown snake". In the articles, I don't know if they are simply referring to its color, or whether they mean a particular snake species commonly called "brown snake" in their area. Since I'm not Australian and not a snake person, I cannot clear up the matter. In the "Pioneers" citation, the snakes are mentioned using their Latin designation (like "N. ater") but in the news articles they are mentioned with the English common name (like "Tiger snake"). So someone with more experience or knowledge in this area should perhaps go down the list and straighten things out. If the table is to be "sortable" there needs to be a standard way of designating what goes in the "Species" column. Normal Op (talk) 19:02, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Tables are now "sortable"; should all the decades be lumped together?
It has been suggested (twice, recently) that the table be "sortable" on snake species. I changed all the tables to be "sortable" so one can view how that would work. It would make sense now to remove the section headers by decade and make one large table. To be useful, there needs to be a "standard" way of typing a snake species (by Latin name or common name). It would also require some sort of standard for the date (right now it is sorting alphabetically, not date-wise). But here I am asking others to post their opinions or concerns about making all the decade-tables into one table for all the entries. Normal Op (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Normal Op, combined or not, can you make the internal order of the tables ascending? It is currently descending. gidonb (talk) 03:49, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In order for the first-shown order to be ascending, one has to re-arrange all the entries. By the way, I like the chronological order you tried to make them, rather than the reverse chronological order (which is the way the List was shown when I first started editing the article). In fact, if I were to rearrange some of these tables, I would put the date as the first column, person as second, then snake, then comments. That order more closely represents that this list is to highlight events, not the individual people. Normal Op (talk) 11:06, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You can click the column header "Date" and it will re-sort any individual table. Note some of the dates do not have days on them (e.g. "June 1973", or even simply "1977"). If the table had completed dates, then it would sort correctly. Now, unfortunately, it will sort it "alphabetically", rather than by date. The 1900's table is a good example to view this problem. You try to sort on date column and it shows you all the numbered years first, then alphabetically October, then two Novembers. It's a problem of data (lack of). Here's a good article on date sort problems in Wikipedia Help:Sorting. The short answer I get from there is that without the "day" in a date, sorting (by column clicking) will not work correctly (without other measures being taken). However, by using the "data-sort-value" option, you can make a table sort correctly. Here is an example I took from the 1900's table showing how you can make use of "date-sort-value" when you have an incomplete date. And you ONLY have to add it to those dates for which you don't have a complete date. (Note: I reproduce it here so you can compare this method to the one on the article page, which I leave unchanged. Normal Op (talk) 11:06, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

SAMPLE TABLE

Okay, I resorted all of the tables into chronological order, put the date field as the first column, added the "date-sort-value" whenever there was no "day" in the date. Normal Op (talk) 12:25, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Normal Op, awesome! Thank you so much!!! gidonb (talk) 13:25, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Bream111's suggestions
As a contributor to the list of Australian Snakebite Fatalities are you aware of a fatality reported in abc.news.au Nov 1st 2019 of a 68yo man bitten by a western brown in the far north of Australia. Also some names are available of the victims of the existing entries.

Also out of curiosity do you think there is any need to include the name gwardar in western brown entries and by the same token the use speckled brown in dugite entries.

In some of the unknown species in Western Australia cases Brian Bush’s website more or less identifies the species by geographic locations of the incidents.

Not a contributor myself but I do follow this page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bream111 (talk • contribs) 23:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for alerting to the 2019 fatality. A quick google search provided this article, so I will add it to the list. As I mentioned on the talk page, here, I am neither a herpitologist nor an Australian, and someone more experienced about these snakes needs to go over the snake IDs in the lists. Most especially, a lot of the news articles simply said "a brown snake" and I was not able to determine whether that meant (1) eastern brown snake, (2) western brown snake, or (3) a brown-colored snake. So I left those entries unlinked to any specific snake article. If you are familiar with any of the snakes, or can pinpoint "brown snake" to a particular snake, go ahead and edit the article. Question: What is "Brian Bush’s website"? Normal Op (talk) 17:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply. You are correct if the report says just brown snake to just leave it as that but more recent cases usually state which type of brown snake. You can only use the information given although certain species of brown snake only occur in various regions of Australia. Western brown snake and gwardar are one and the same snake. Also dugite and speckled brown are two names for the same snake. If you search Brian bush’s homepage and then scroll down to Deaths in Western Australia involving snakes you will see Mr Bush’s list. On this list you will see a victim  aged 33 months which is the correct age not 33yo as in the main list. His remarks about the Mary Nichols snake I D should be noted. He is a well respected reptile expert. I do not know how to edit these pages but I am happy to email information I can give you or message you on here. Incidentally a man died near Toowoomba Queensland recently after being bitten by an eastern brown but it’s not clear if the snake venom or a subsequent head injury was the cause of death. I have a screenshot of the report. I also have screenshots of reports with the names of a couple of so far listed as unknown victims.


 * I am not Australian either, nor I am a herpitologist but I do have an interest in these fascinating creatures. If you check out the USA equivalent of snake bite deaths you will see that this page has much more information . I think that there are quite a few entries in the Australian version that still need to be discovered. Bream111 21 January 2020 Bream111 (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)


 * is referring to this webpage . Bream111 started this conversation on my Talk page. I'm moving it here because this is where it is most relevant. Normal Op (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2020 (UTC)


 * , I agree there may be missing entries. If you're not yet ready to edit the article yourself, you should put your information on this Talk Page and then anyone who is interested in editing this article can pick up the information and work with it. You can always add more information to Talk Pages by clicking the "New Section" link at the top of the page, or clicking any of the many "edit" links on the page. The New Section option will make a header for you. Though you cannot upload screenshots directly to Wikipedia, you can upload them to a service such as imgbb.com and put the link in your message here on the Talk Page. Normal Op (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Quoted death rates are wrong - three contradictory statisticsDavid from Downunder (talk) 11:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
The article says "The estimated incidence of snakebites annually in Australia is between 3 and 18 per 100,000 with an average mortality rate of 0.03 per 100,000 per year".

The referenced article actually says "The estimated incidence of snakebites annually in Australia is between 3 and 18 per 100,000 with an average mortality rate of 4 per 100,000 per year.

However, it does quote the contradictory rate of 0.03 per 100,000 ... ON THE SAME PAGE!

The article then goes on to state "0.03 per 100,000 per year, or roughly 1 to 2 persons [per year]". 0.03/100K is 7.5 person ... not 1 to 2 persons.

And 4 per 100,000 is roughly 1000 person per year.

So, we have three contradictory statistics: 1 to 2; 7.5; and 1000.