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Papuan Black Snake
The Papuan black snake (''Pseudechis papuanus'') is a venomous snake of the family Elapidae native to New Guinea. Reaching around 2 m (6 ft 8 in) in length, it is a predominantly black snake coloured grey underneath. Taxonomy The Papuan black snake is one of several species in the genus ''Pseudechis'' commonly known as black snakes. It was described in 1878 by Wilhelm Peters and Giacomo Doria in 1878 from material collected in southeastern New Guinea. A study of mitochondrial DNA showed the Papuan black snake to be the next closest relative to a pair of Australian species, Collett's Snake ('' P. collettii'') and the blue-bellied black snake ('' P. guttatus''), and is likely to have had its origins in Australia and diverged from a common ancestor in the Pliocene. Description A solidly built snake with a wide round head and slight neck, the Papuan black snake ranges from 1.2 to 1.7 m in length, with individuals occasionally exceeding 2 metres. The longest specimen recor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 in Koldenbüttel – 20 April 1883) was a German natural history, naturalist and explorer. He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Natural History Museum, Berlin, Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in ''Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt'' (1852–1882). The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years, he g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neurotoxicity
Neurotoxicity is a form of toxicity in which a biological, chemical, or physical agent produces an adverse effect on the structure or function of the central and/or peripheral nervous system. It occurs when exposure to a substance – specifically, a neurotoxin or neurotoxicant– alters the normal activity of the nervous system in such a way as to cause permanent or reversible damage to nervous tissue. This can eventually disrupt or even kill neurons, which are cells that transmit and process signals in the brain and other parts of the nervous system. Neurotoxicity can result from organ transplants, radiation treatment, certain drug therapies, recreational drug use, and exposure to heavy metals, bites from certain species of venomous snakes, pesticides, certain industrial cleaning solvents, fuels and certain naturally occurring substances. Symptoms may appear immediately after exposure or be delayed. They may include limb weakness or numbness, loss of memory, vision, and/or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snakes Of New Guinea
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metropolitan area known as Greater Melbourne, comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities, although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area. The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into the Mornington Peninsula, part of West Gippsland, as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong and Macedon Ranges. It has a population over 5 million (19% of the population of Australia, as per 2021 census), mostly residing to the east side of the city centre, and its inhabitants are commonly referred to as "Melburnians". The area of Melbourne has been home to Aboriginal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CSL Limited
CSL Limited is an Australian multinational specialty biotechnology company that researches, develops, manufactures, and markets products to treat and prevent serious human medical conditions. CSL's product areas include blood plasma derivatives, vaccines, antivenom, and cell culture reagents used in various medical and genetic research and manufacturing applications. History Origin and Penfold directorship CSL was founded in 1916 as the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, an Australian government body focused on vaccine manufacture. Under the first director, William Penfold, CSL commenced operation in the vacant Walter and Eliza Hall Institute building at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1918, before moving to its purpose-built Parkville premises in the following year. Morgan directorship After ongoing disputes with the Commonwealth Department of Health and its director, (John) Howard Cumpston, Penfold resigned in 1927 and was replaced by Frederic Morgan. Soon after Morgan' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Slater (herpetologist)
Kenneth R. Slater (22 June 1923 - 15 August 1999)Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Slater, K.", p. 245). Retrieved througGoogleBooks 18 June 2017. was an Australian engineer and herpetologist.Mirtschin P (2006). "The pioneers of venom production for Australian antivenoms". ''Toxicon'' 48: 899-918. (Slater is in pages 911 and 912). Retrieveonline 18 June 2017. Slater's deliveries of snake venom were instrumental in the development of antivenom for several species. Biography Slater was educated as a civil engineer, but he was interested in zoology and snakes, as well. In his early years, he accompanied Eric Worrell a few times, searching for live snakes in the Australian wild. In 1952, he took a job in the oil industry in Papua New Guinea, to be able to spend more time in the wild. Shortly after, he was appointed acting animal ecologist by the Department of Agric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herpetologist
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and reptiles (including snakes, lizards, amphisbaenids, turtles, terrapins, tortoises, crocodilians, and the tuataras). Birds, which are cladistically included within Reptilia, are traditionally excluded here; the scientific study of birds is the subject of ornithology. Thus, the definition of herpetology can be more precisely stated as the study of ectothermic (cold-blooded) tetrapods. Under this definition "herps" (or sometimes "herptiles" or "herpetofauna") exclude fish, but it is not uncommon for herpetological and ichthyological scientific societies to collaborate. Examples include publishing joint journals and holding conferences in order to foster the exchange of ideas between the fields, as the American Society of Ichthyologists and He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiwai Language
Kiwai is a Papuan language, or languages, of southern Papua New Guinea. Dialects number 1,300 Kope, 700 Gibaio, 1,700 Urama, 700 Arigibi (together "Northeast Kiwai"), 3,800 Coast, 1,000 Daru, 4,500 Island, 400 Doumori (together "Southern Kiwai"). Wurm and Hattori (1981) classify Arigibi as a separate language. Introduction Kiwai Island is a long/low island located on the Eastern side of the Southern entrance to the delta of the Fly River (Papua). Gender Kiwai is gender free; male and female is shown by specific terms when needed. Alphabet * 17 Letters ** vowels: a, e, i, o, u (diphthongs are combinations of any two vowels, e.g. ai, au, oi, ou, ei, etc.) ** Consonants: k, g, t, s, d, n, r, p, b, m, v, h ** Semivowel: w/u, i/y /j/ Parts of speech Parts of speech are associated with the standard European parts of speech, somewhat inelegantly. The three major parts of sppech are Nominals, Verbs and Particles: Nominals # Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns (Personal and Relative) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mekeo Language
Mekeo is a language spoken in Papua New Guinea and had 19,000 speakers in 2003. It is an Oceanic language of the Papuan Tip Linkage. The two major villages that the language is spoken in are located in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea. These are named Ongofoina and Inauaisa. The language is also broken up into four dialects: East Mekeo; North West Mekeo; West Mekeo and North Mekeo. The standard dialect is East Mekeo. This main dialect is addressed throughout the article. In addition, there are at least two Mekeo-based pidgins. Phonology Mekeo employs a relatively simple system of phonology which consists of 10 consonants and 5 vowels. The following tables identify both the consonants and vowels present in Mekeo. Consonants Note that the table above displays the range of consonants used in East Mekeo which is classified as the standard dialect. North West Mekeo, West Mekeo and North Mekeo each have slightly different consonants included in their dialects. Vowels Mekeo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudechis Australis
The king brown snake (''Pseudechis australis'') is a species of highly venomous snake of the family Elapidae, native to northern, western, and Central Australia. Despite its common name, it is a member of the genus ''Pseudechis'' (black snakes) and only distantly related to true brown snakes. Its alternative common name is the mulga snake, although it lives in many habitats apart from mulga. First described by English zoologist John Edward Gray in 1842, it is a robust snake up to long. It is variable in appearance, with individuals from northern Australia having tan upper parts, while those from southern Australia are dark brown to blackish. Sometimes, it is seen in a reddish-green texture. The dorsal scales are two-toned, sometimes giving the snake a patterned appearance. Its underside is cream or white, often with orange splotches. The species is oviparous. The snake is considered to be a least-concern species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taipan
Taipans are snakes of the genus ''Oxyuranus'' in the elapid family. They are large, fast-moving, highly venomous, and endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Three species are recognised, one of which, the coastal taipan, has two subspecies. Taipans are some of the deadliest known snakes. Taxonomy The common name, taipan, was coined by anthropologist Donald Thomson after the word used by the Wik-Mungkan Aboriginal people of central Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. The Wik-Mungkan people used the name in reference to an ancestral creator being in Aboriginal Australian mythology known as the Rainbow Serpent. The genus name is from Greek ὀξῠ́ς (''oxys'': sharp, needle-like) and οὐρανός (''ouranos'': an arch, specifically the vault of the heavens), and refers to the needle-like anterior process on the arch of the palate, which Kinghorn noted separated the genus from all other elapids. The oft-quoted meaning "sharp-tailed" (based on a confusion with οὐρ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equatorial Spitting Cobra
The Equatorial spitting cobra (''Naja sumatrana'') also called the black spitting cobra, Malayan spitting cobra, golden spitting cobra, Sumatran spitting cobra, or Palawan spitting cobra, is a species of spitting cobra found in Southeast Asia. Description This species is medium in length, averaging between in length, though they can grow up to . The body is compressed dorsoventrally and sub-cylindrical posteriorly. The head of this species is elliptical, depressed, and slightly distinct from the neck with a short, rounded snout and large nostrils. Eyes are medium in size with round pupils. Dorsal scales are smooth and strongly oblique. This species of cobra has no hood marks and colouration varies based upon geographical location. There are two colour phases: a yellow form commonly found in Thailand and Northern Peninsular Malaysia, and a black form found in Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and the islands where it occurs in Indonesia and the Philippines. Juveniles and adults al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
