The one sea snake divers here ask about, and the answer is that it does not live in this sea: despite being the most widely distributed snake on earth, ranging across the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is absent from the 🌊 Red Sea, most likely blocked by the cold upwelling off the 🌊 Gulf of Aden. What follows describes an animal encountered elsewhere. It is unmistakable when met - sharply two-toned, black or dark brown above and yellow below along a clean dividing line, ending in a flattened paddle of a tail; the name platurus means flat-tailed. Females reach about 88 cm (35 in), males around 72 cm (28 in).
It is fully pelagic, drifting at the surface along slicks and current lines rather than visiting reefs, and it hunts by lying motionless until small fish gather beneath it, then striking with a lunge backwards - an unusual reverse motion for a snake. The body is built for a life that never touches land: valved nostrils and a palatal seal keep seawater out, up to a third of its oxygen is taken through the skin, and it drinks nothing but fresh water, sipping the lens of rain that floats on the sea after a shower. Between rains it can endure severe dehydration for as long as seven months. The venom is potent - a neurotoxin that stops the diaphragm - but the animal is inoffensive, and bites are almost unheard of outside fishing nets.
Reproduction happens entirely at sea; the species never comes ashore, not even to give birth. After roughly six months of gestation a female bears two to six live young, each around 25 cm (10 in) long and independent from the moment it is born. They mature at about eighteen months and may live a decade.
- distinctly bicolor body
- black or dark brown dorsal surface
- yellow or brown ventral surface
- paddle-like tail
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats to this species. Minor threats may include bycatch in squid fisheries (M. Guinea pers. comm. 2009), ghost fishing nets, and pollution, including oil spills.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
