Explaining the story of a poisonous tiger snake turned into a

The Chappell island snake occupies the island of Mount Chappell for centuries, known as the cobra with the largest body, even twice as large as the cobra living in other regions.

Chappell island snake, which belongs to the black tiger genus (Notechis ater), is also called the Tiger Tiger (Island Tiger Snakes) . While the snakes in the Yorke region, Ayre Penisula and Kangaroo Island and some other islands are only small in size, sometimes there are children up to 0.9 meters long.

In contrast, the snakes of Chappell Island are often very large, ranging from 1.8 meters to 2.1 meters, even 2.4 meters.

Chappell's cobra has twice the size of a cobra elsewhere.

According to John C.Murphy's study in the book 'Secrets of the Snake Charmer: Snakes in the 21st Century' , there are many theories explaining the phenomenon of cobra in Chappell Island with an unusually giant body. Some people think that their bodies are so strong because they have to adapt to fierce competition to fight their partners during mating season.

However, according to John C. Murphy, the male tiger snake is not a species with intense competition when mating, but it is famous for its peak hunting potential on the islands. Most researchers also believe that the body size of a cobra depends on the size of the prey it finds on the islands.

Accordingly, mainland cobras mainly eat toads, frogs are prey only weighing about 70g. So these snakes are about 0.78m-0.92m in size. Roxby Island cobras are also small in size because their prey are only 10g lizards or prey weighing 10g or less.

Muttonbird Bird - favorite prey of the giant cobra of Chappell Island.

Differently, the cobra of Chappell has an outstanding body because they specialize in eating mammals or Muttonbirds, which are animals that weigh between 300-350g . That requires the cobra here to have evolutionary size to adapt to the prey it hunts.

Previously, a team collected dozens of cobra individuals from various regions in Austrailia. Through DNA analysis, the researchers discovered not only the giant cobra on Chappell Island but also other snakes with their size adaptation to prey size.

In addition to its outstanding size, Chappell Island giant cobra is also thought to be capable of producing the largest amount of toxins among the black tiger snakes. On average, it can generate between 74mg and 388mg when attacking a victim. Although its toxin composition is similar to that of mainland cobras, in order to cure the bite of the Chappell cobra, the victim needs to be injected twice as much as usual.