Abstract
Australia is the stronghold of the front-fanged venomous snake family Elapidae. The Australasian elapid snake radiation, which includes approximately 100 terrestrial species in Australia, as well as Melanesian species and all the world’s true sea snakes, may be less than 12 million years old. The incredible phenotypic and ecological diversity of the clade is matched by considerable diversity in venom composition. The clade’s evolutionary youth and dynamic evolution should make it of particular interest to toxinologists, however, the majority of species, which are small, typically inoffensive, and seldom encountered by non-herpetologists, have been almost completely neglected by researchers. The present study investigates the venom composition of 28 species proteomically, revealing several interesting trends in venom composition, and reports, for the first time in elapid snakes, the existence of an ontogenetic shift in the venom composition and activity of brown snakes (Pseudonaja sp.). Trends in venom composition are compared to the snakes’ feeding ecology and the paper concludes with an extended discussion of the selection pressures shaping the evolution of snake venom.
Highlights
The family Elapidae includes some of the world’s most notorious species of venomous snake, including the mambas of Africa, the kraits of Asia, the cobras of Africa and Asia, and the coral snakes ofAsia and the Americas
Small quantities of 3FTx have previously been detected in the venom of Demansia vestigiata [19], so it may be that they are present in the venom of the Demansia sp
The reason for this is clear—when elapid snakes first arrived in Australia there were very few snakes here
Summary
The family Elapidae includes some of the world’s most notorious species of venomous snake, including the mambas of Africa, the kraits of Asia, the cobras of Africa and Asia, and the coral snakes ofAsia and the Americas. The family Elapidae includes some of the world’s most notorious species of venomous snake, including the mambas of Africa, the kraits of Asia, the cobras of Africa and Asia, and the coral snakes of. All elapid snakes are venomous, and the fixed hollow fangs situated at the front of the maxilla are one of the family’s principle synapomorphies [1]. The family is widely distributed and present in many of the world’s tropical and subtropical regions. Throughout most of this distribution, members of the Elapidae compete with both non-front-fanged (NFFs—formerly members of the polyphyletic assemblage Colubridae) and viperid snakes for niche space. Australia is home to approximately 100 terrestrial and 30 marine species of elapid snake [4]. Taking into account the fact that all of the world’s sea snakes (Hydrophiinae and Laticaudinae) have Australasian origins [5], the region must certainly be considered the stronghold of the Elapidae
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