The Browns are back in town

The Browns are back in town…as the warm weather returns so the basking angels of the scrub are out in force. In Western Australia we have just started to treat our first significant brown snake envenomations of the spring/summer period. In the first 5 cases combination treatment with FFP and CSL brown snake antivenom has resulted in full recovery and reversal of significant defibrinating coagulopathy.

Haematology Results

The brown snake (Pseudonaja spp.) is an elapid snake, native to Australia which comes in a variety of forms. They are very fast moving snakes active in both day and night time (diurnal) and range in size from 1.5 to 3m in length. They are one of Australia’s most deadly creatures.

The Eastern Brown Snake (common brown snake or Pseudonaja textilis) is the second most venomous land snake in the world after the inland Taipan.

• Pseudonaja nuchalis: Western brown or gwardar
• Pseudonaja affinis: Dugite
• Pseudonaja textilis: Common or eastern brown snake
• Pseudonaja guttata: Speckled brown
• Pseudonaja modesta: Five-ringed brown
• Pseudonaja ingrami: Ingram’s brown
• Pseudonaja tanneri: Tanner’s brown
• Pseudonaja inframacula: Peninsulabrown

The name ‘Brown Snake’ is a bit misleading. Colours are variable and range from tan through dark brown, russet-orange to almost black, with a cream or white belly. Generally the juveniles have black bands which fade with age but may still be evident in some adults.

Brown Snakes generally mate during spring. Males engage in ‘ritual combat’ with other males for control of territory. The most dominant male will mate with females in the area. Females produce a clutch of 10–40 eggs in late spring or early summer which hatch 3 months later producing independent offspring 25-30cm in length.

So what to do if you are bitten by one of these beautiful beasts?

• Keep the patient as quiet as possible and immobilize the affected limb
• Place an elastic bandage over the wound site and bandage as far down the limb as possible, then back up the limb as far as possible. This may not always be possible!
• Call an ambulance and get to a hospital immediately. (In an emergency always dial 000 )
  • Do not ask the patient to walk to a vehicle for transport, bring the vehicle to the patient, the less movement on the part of the patient, the better.
• Do not wash the wound site.
• Do not cut the wound (and do not suck venom from the wound)
• Identification of the snake is not necessary
  • Do not attempt to capture or kill the snake to take to the hospital, most hospital staff cannot positively identify a snake.
• Poisons Information Service: 13 11 26