Animals on the Road

On the Great Central Road between Tjukayirla and Warburton, we met a couple interesting friends. One is the Mulga or King Brown Snake. It is the second longest poisonous snake in Australia (second only to the Coastal Taipan).



According to Wikipedia:

The mulga snake venom consists of myotoxins. The LD₅₀ is 2.38 mg/kg subcutaneous. Its venom is not particularly toxic to mice, but it is produced in huge quantities. The average tiger snake produces around 10–40 mg when milked. By comparison, a large king brown snake may deliver 150 mg in one bite.

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Venomous snakes normally only attack humans when disturbed. Mulga snakes have been noted, however, to bite people who were asleep at the time.

This last bit is pretty disturbing for those of us sleeping our here!

Once we arrived in our noisy ute, the mulga began his/her escape to the bush.

And Safety reached at last. Once he's in the bush, you really can't see him at all. Of course, I was not walking out there to look for him but you get the point.

Our second encounter in the portion of the trip is much less dangerous: the camel.

Again from Wikipedia:

Australian feral camels are feral populations consisting of two species of camel: mostly dromedaries (Camelus dromedarius) but also some bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus). Imported into Australia from British India and Afghanistan^[1] during the 19th century for transport and construction during the colonisation of the central and western parts of Australia, many were released into the wild after motorised transport replaced the use of camels in the early 20th century, resulting in a fast-growing feral population.

In fact (according to Wikipedia), by 2008 there were an estimated 1 million feral camels and the population was expected to double every 8-10 years. As the result of a culling program between 2009-13, the population was reduced to about 300,000. Here are some of the survivors.