Science meets the taipan: the discovery and description of an iconic venomous snake

The authors thank the following colleagues for their generosity in providing support for this project. For unpublished information about historical events we thank Ray Sumner (California State University), Hennilore Landsberg and P. Bartsch (Museum fur Naturkunde, Berlin), Maddi Holmes (Macquarie University), Dianne Bray (Museums Victoria), Shannon Robinson (Queensland Museum Library), Peter Hobbins (Sydney Maritime Museum), Hamish Walsh (CSL Sequiris), Dan Natusch (Macquarie University), and Tim Jaffer and the Wilson family of Bamaga. We especially thank Glenn Shea (University of Sydney) for extensive comments on the manuscript, for alerting us to the existence of the 'Kershaw taipan' and clarification of many historical ambiguities. The paper has been substantially improved by Glenn's comments. For examination and images of museum specimens and registers we are grateful to Mark O'Shea (University of Wolverhampton), Dane Trembath and Robert Dooley (Australian Museum), Andrew Amey (Queensland Museum), Jeff Streicher (Natural History Museum, London), Frank Tillack and Mark-Oliver Roedel (Museum fur Naturkunde, Berlin), Jane Melville (Museums Victoria) and Ian Brennan (Australian National University). We thank Rob Valentic for his photograph of a taipan, Melanie Elphick for formatting the paper, Terri Shine for enhancing images, Georgia Ward-Fear for clarifying appropriate terminology, and Cristofer Clemente for inviting us to submit this manuscript to the journal.