Banded Sea Snake

Sea Snakes are highly venomous marine reptiles inhabiting the warm tropical waters of the world. Sea Snakes have developed anatomical features streamlined for adaptation to an aquatic environment. Evolutionary marvels living at sea, Sea Snakes must still surface to breath air unlike eels, underwater neighbors who share the same habitat, like the moray eel, who have gills for absorbing oxygen and are absent of any scales. Banded Sea Snakes evolved from land species into aquatic reptiles having smooth-scaled bodies easy to recognize in shades of light blue with black bands. Excellent swimmers and divers, there are over 70 species of Sea Snakes making them one of the most plentiful and widely disbursed family of poisonous reptiles in the world. Over 50 species are members of the family Hydrophiidae. Snakes in this family typically have laterally compressed tails which they use like oars to propel themselves through the water, valvular nostrils with valve-like flaps which they close upon submersion, accompanied by total loss of ventral plates. Because they must surface to breathe, Sea Snakes are known to frequent the shallow ocean waters of beautiful tropical coral reefs of the world.