snake of the day
death adders are so cool
they resemble vipers, because they have this kinda fat face and body. they're ambush predators. even their scale patterns are closer to vipers'
but they're elapids! a group of snakes that includes coral snakes, mambas, and cobras. the usually bullet-shaped, highly venomous snakes
mostly sight-hunters too
an interesting case of convergent evolution
death adders filled an ecological niche in Australia
there are no vipers in Australia. I think mostly hydrophis elapids, a few colubrids maybe, and a few others
despite the fact that Australia is pretty close to huge viper diversity in Asia and the surrounding islands. vipers never made it over. or they didn't survive Australia's environment
*oh and some Morelia and Antaresia species too. pythons and stuff
I think amethystine pythons are found down under
they were moved into Simalia, evidently, and are no longer Morelia
alright. well. evidently they're not even Australian anymore
the Australian amethystines were reclassified as a different species
so proper amethystines are only in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea