Left: a pretty little gravid female from
Four Springs Lake, Selbourne. Paler
coloured snakes like this are common in
parts of Tasmania and typically give
birth to yellowish neonates.
Photo by S. Fearn.
Above right: neonates like this are
common in Tasmania but often go much
darker as they age in the wild. Kept
indoors without UV light this snake will
become a more intense gold.
Photo by S. Fearn.
Below right: a genuine wild golden tiger
from the foothills of the Great Western
Tiers behind Deloraine in northern
Tasmania. Photo by B. Munday.
sometimes prodigious proportions,
of Tiger Snakes from the Tasmanian
region has made them popular with
hobbyists for generations. One of the
most sought-after of all these
variations is the almost mythical
‘golden tiger’.
more commonly so on specimens
from offshore islands. Solid-
coloured tan to brown snakes with
no banding whatsoever and on which
the ventral colour extends upwards
onto the first few rows of dorsal
scales are rare on the Tasmanian
mainland but common on some Bass
Strait islands - Chappell Island being
one of the best known examples.
Melanotic specimens throughout the
Tasmanian region have also been
recorded with all-black ventral
scales.
The extensive colour range, and
Genuine, wild golden tigers are
relatively rare, and most of the
specimens I have seen have come
from the forested eastern foothills of
the Great Western Tiers in the
northern part of the state. I vividly
remember the first golden tiger I
captured because it was also the first
wild snake that I tailed. I was
looking for Tiger Snakes late one
summer afternoon at Liffey in the
Great Western Tiers and while
working my way along a creek line
adjacent to a paddock I spied a
magnificent 1.5m golden snake
coiled on top of a pile of logs bull-
dozed into the creek gully. The snake
had spotted me and was starting to
move off, so I had to think quickly
before it reached the safety of a maze
of logs and blackberries. I had only
just started interacti