Echiopsis

Echiopsis is a small genus in the family Elapidae, the same front-fanged group that includes cobras, mambas, sea snakes, and the bulk of Australia's venomous land snakes. The genus is best known for the Bardick, a short, heavy-bodied terrestrial snake found across southern Australia. With so few recognized species, Echiopsis is a narrow corner of the elapid family rather than a large, varied group, and most of what is worth knowing centers on that one well-known snake.

Members are compact and thickset rather than long and slender, with a broad head and keeled or rough-looking dorsal scales that give them a vaguely viper-like appearance. This body shape suits an ambush lifestyle. They favor dry heath, mallee scrub, shrubland, and coastal sandplain across parts of southern and southwestern Australia, where they shelter under leaf litter, low vegetation, and ground debris and become most active in the cooler parts of the day and after dark in warm weather.

Like other Australian elapids, Echiopsis is venomous and front-fanged, so it should be treated with respect and never handled in the wild. The Bardick is not generally regarded as a major threat to human life compared with Australia's most dangerous snakes, but any elapid bite can be serious and unpredictable. These snakes are ambush predators that eat lizards, frogs, small mammals, and invertebrates, and Australian elapids are typically live-bearing rather than egg-laying. If a bite occurs, treat it as a medical emergency, keep the person calm and still, and contact local emergency services immediately; in the United States, Poison Control is reachable at 1-800-222-1222.