Rare venomous sea snake washes up on California beach during El Nino

Back in October another yellow-bellied snake was found, but before that one hadn’t been in California since the 1970s. The last one washed ashore at Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard in October. However, he recommended people keep their distance from the animal.

Yellow-bellied sea snakes require warm water and normally inhabit tropical swaths of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. “So, unless you pick one up, the biggest safety concern with going to the beach is with driving there and then driving home”.

A rare black sea snake with yellow-belly lining was found in California beach by an environmental group.

Huntington Beach Surfrider Foundation chairman, Tony Soriano, said the 275 beach cleanup volunteers did not realize that type of snake they have stumbled across – or that it could be deadly. “As the yellow-bellied sea snake is highly venomous, the public should not handle it. Instead, take photos, note the exact location, and report any sightings in California to iNaturalist and Herp Mapper“.

They’re far more likely to end up on the beach in New South Wales than LA. During the second encounter, the snake was found alive, but it died shortly thereafter.

“They can swim backward and forward and can stay underwater for up to three hours”, the Huntington Beach Surfrider Foundation posted in the description of a YouTube about the rare find.

The reptile’s fangs are tiny and their mouths are small, not being wide enough to bite a person; however, their venom is toxic to humans, and can be fatal. According to the group, it’s widely believed that El Nino-related temperature change might have attracted the creature to swim towards the north in quest of eels and fish’. First time, it was found Thanksgiving 1972 at San Clemente Beach. “Finding them in sea grass beds at Shark Bay was a real surprise”, says Ms. D’Anastasi.

“This discovery is really exciting, we get another chance to protect these two endemic Western Australian sea snake species”, said the study’s lead author, Blanche D’Anastasi of James Cook University’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, in a release. After posting the pictures to Facebook, Soriano was contacted by Greg Pauly, a herpetology curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Like most other sea snakes, the venom from this species is very potent and can cause neuromuscular paralysis.