[3] Richard Wells and Ross Wellington gave the Kimberley death adder its scientific name Acanthophis lancasteri—in honour of Burt Lancaster—in a 1985 monograph, citing as the type specimen an adult collected 45 kilometres (28 mi) north-northeast of Halls Creek in Western Australia.

[4] They cited a 1981 paper by Glen Milton Storr, who had written about death adders of Western Australia.

[6] Ken P. Aplin and Steve C. Donnellan incorrectly called the name a nomen nudum believing neither Wells and Wellington's nor Storr's notes distinguished the new taxon from the northern death adder, but overlooking the purported differentiating characters with W&W.

[7] Simon Maddock and colleagues analysed the Kimberley death adder genetically and confirmed W&W 30 year prior contentions that it was a distinct lineage, more closely related to the desert death adder (A. pyrrhus), and named it Acanthophis cryptamydros in 2015, as they proposed that A. lancasteri was a nomen nudum.

[2] The Kimberley death adder is a stocky snake with a pear-shaped head that reaches 64.5 cm (25.5 in) in length.