First-Ever Recording of Live Snake Birth

Four new snakes have now joined the program, representing a huge conservation milestone for the future of the endangered Broad-Headed Snake.

Conservation organisation Aussie Ark is thrilled to announce the first-ever video recording of the live birth of one of its endangered Broad-Headed Snakes!

The birth occurred in Aussie Ark’s Conservation Ark facility in Somersby, NSW, where the organisation houses Australia’s world-first wild-sourced insurance population of the iconic reptile.

In partnership with Professor Jonathan Webb of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Aussie Ark famously secured its first 17 founders when it started the program in 2024. With a license for 20 snakes, Aussie Ark returned to the field this spring to successfully collect the one female and two males needed to complete its breeding and rewilding program.

Conservation Ark Ranger Dylan Wallis was part of both expeditions, is passionate about reptiles, and oversees the program. Mid this year, Mr Wallis paired the 20 adults for breeding, which was a meticulous and often highly dangerous process. Broad-Headed Snakes are notorious for being hard to handle; they are semi-arboreal, so able to turn back on themselves with ease to bite, they’re incredibly defensive, and their venom is deadly.

But Mr Wallis is highly trained and skilled at snake handling, and one by one, he moved males into female habitats. The pairing was based on a complex mix of factors, including genetics, age and size. But romance is never guaranteed. In fact, the opposite can occur.

“Snakes can potentially eat each other if they don’t like each other!” Mr Wallis said. “So it’s important we choose the right pair, and then of course we have to monitor their behaviour 24/7 to ensure no harm is done.”

Mr Wallis said it was a challenging process, spending months waiting, watching and hoping pairs would breed, often needing to “mix and match” to find the right combination.

Most snake species lay eggs. Only 30% of species bear live young, and the Broad-Headed Snake is one of them. Gestation takes approximately six months, during which Mr Wallis was thrilled to observe that a large female was pregnant (gravid). Two months before the anticipated birthing, the Conservation Ark team installed a remote sensor camera unit in her habitat. As this had never been attempted before, there was no guarantee of success.

The mother was not disturbed by the camera’s presence. And incredibly, remained in view as she gave birth. Footage includes her large belly pre-birth, contractions, and then the emergence of the young. The team were beyond thrilled!

This is the second birth that has occurred in Aussie Ark’s Broad-Headed Snake program, and nationally significant. In the wild, this cryptic, shy snake only births once a year, bearing a maximum of four young. Their low reproduction is a contributor to their decline, combined with habitat destruction and illegal poaching. The species is only found in the escarpment of the Sydney Sandstone Basin, and its population is plummeting.

Aussie Ark’s breeding and rewilding effort is part of a larger holistic program in which the organisation is also funding on-site monitoring by Traditional Owners, the erection of gates to reduce access to key habitat, and ongoing research in partnership with UTS.

The four new baby snakes will one day be released back On Country, helping bolster wild genetics and population.