2 .
1 . Yellow-bellied Sea
Snake. This specimen
was found in Noumea,
New Caledonia.
2 .
Yellow-lipped Sea
Krait from Tavarua Island
in Fiji.
3 .
Habitat of Laticauda
colubrina and L. frontalis,
Pango Point, Efate,
Vanuatu.
All images by
Hal Cogger, unless
otherwise noted.
southern Africa, across the Indian Ocean to
Australian waters and then east to the west coast of
Central America. It is a surface-dwelling, pelagic
sea snake carried across the open ocean by local
and global currents. There are several genetically-
distinct populations, but they are all currently
lumped into this single species. I once had the
opportunity to travel to Europe via the Panama
Canal, and well remember the vast numbers of
Yellow-bellied Sea Snakes floating on the surface
as the ship passed through the Gulf of Panama,
where these snakes periodically congregate.
There have been a number of proposals for a
second, sea-level canal to be built in addition to the
Panama Canal to facilitate shipping movements
between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, but so far
the fear of the Yellow-bellied Sea Snake being
introduced into the Caribbean and seriously
impacting its tourist trade has been a major
disincentive to its construction.
The second group of marine snakes - usually
treated as members of a single genus, Laticauda,
and the one that concerns the rest of this article - is
widely known as the sea kraits because of the
strongly-banded bodies of most of its eight species.
These are sometimes treated as a distinct subfamily
(Laticaudinae) within the fixed front-fanged family
Elapidae. Two species, one that occurs from the
Bay of Bengal to Japan's Ryukyu Archipelago, the
Philippines and Indonesia, and a closely-related
dwarf that breeds only on the Pacific Island of Niue,
are sometimes placed in a separate genus,
Pseudolaticauda.
Sea kraits, unlike the true sea snakes, are
3 .
oviparous and spend about half of their daily lives in
the sea and the other half on land. Their terrestrial
time is usually spent close to the sea - among low
vegetation and litter, or in crevices in the coral
limestones that make up the shores of many islands
throughout their ranges. However they occasionally
move hundreds of metres inland, or climb 100
metres or more to the tops of some rocky islets.
Sea kraits feed in the sea, usually in shallow reef
waters, where several species - especially those
that are more common and widely-ranging - feed
almost entirely on eels. Other species will feed, at
least partly, on different groups of fishes. By
comparison, the only freshwater sea krait
(Laticauda crockeri) appears to feed almost
exclusively on small freshwater gudgeons.
The venom of sea kraits is highly toxic, though
deaths from their bites are rarely reported. Sizeable
females of the Yellow-lipped Sea Krait (Laticauda
colubrina) can attain a length of nearly two metres,
and have large broad heads, substantial venom
glands and an efficient delivery system, yet they