Yellow-lipped sea krait facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Yellow-lipped sea krait |
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| A yellow-lipped sea krait in Wakatobi National Park, Indonesia. | |
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Laticauda
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Laticauda colubrina
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The yellow-lipped sea krait (Laticauda colubrina) is a species of sea snake found in tropical Indo-Pacific ocean waters. The yellow-lipped sea krait is also known as the "banded sea krait" and the "colubrine sea krait".
Contents
Biology
Banded sea kraits are often seen in large numbers in the company of hunting parties of giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis) and goatfish. Their cooperative hunting technique is similar to that of the moray eel. The kraits flush out prey from narrow crevices and holes. Kraits need to drink fresh water and regularly come onto land for that purpose.
While probing crevices with their head, they cannot see approaching predators. But they can fool their potential enemies into thinking their tail is the head. Both colouration and tail movements are like the head.
Description
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Female yellow-lipped sea kraits are longer than males. Females can grow up to the length of 1.6 meters, while males grow up to the length of 1 meters. Yellow-lipped sea kraits are light or dark blueish-grey on the top and yellow underneath with black bands running down the body and tail. The upper lip and snout is yellow (hence its name) while the rest of the head is black. They are very venomous but they are not aggressive and rarely ever bite divers or swimmers.
Behavior
Yellow-lipped sea kraits are semiaquatic. Juveniles stay in water and on adjacent coasts, but adults are able to move further inland and spend half their time on land and half in the ocean. Adult males are more terrestrially active during mating and hunt in shallower water, requiring more terrestrial locomotive ability. Adult females, though, are less active on land during mating and hunt in deeper water, requiring more aquatic locomotive ability. Because males are smaller, they crawl and swim faster than females.
Body adaptations, especially a paddle-like tail, help yellow-lipped sea kraits to swim. These adaptations are also found in more distantly related sea snakes (Hydrophiinae) because of convergent evolution, but because of the differences in motion between crawling and swimming, these same adaptations impede the snake's terrestrial motion. On dry land, a yellow-lipped sea krait can still move, but typically at only slightly more than a fifth of its swimming speed. In contrast, most sea snakes other than Laticauda spp. are virtually stranded on dry land.
When hunting, yellow-lipped sea kraits frequently head into deep water far from land, but return to land to digest meals, shed skin, and reproduce. Individuals return to their specific home islands, exhibiting philopatry. When yellow-lipped sea kraits on Fijian islands were relocated to different islands 5.3 km away, all recaptured individuals were found on their home islands in an average of 30.7 days.
Yellow-lipped sea kraits collected near the tip of Borneo had heavy tick infections.
Hunting and diet
Hunting is often performed alone, but L. colubrina kraits may also do so in large numbers in the company of hunting parties of giant trevally and goatfish. This cooperative hunting technique is similar to that of the moray eel, with the yellow-lipped sea kraits flushing out prey from narrow crevices and holes, and the trevally and goatfish feeding on fleeing prey.
While probing crevices with their heads, yellow-lipped sea kraits are unable to observe approaching predators and can be vulnerable. The snakes can deter predators, such as larger fish, sharks, and birds, by fooling them into thinking that their tail is their head, because the color and movement of the tail is similar to that of the snake's head. For example, the lateral aspect of the tail corresponds to the dorsal view of the head.
Yellow-lipped sea kraits primarily feed on varieties of eels, but also eat small fish. Males and females exhibit sexual dimorphism in hunting behavior, as adult females, which are significantly larger than males, prefer to hunt in deeper water for larger conger eels, while adult males hunt in shallower water for smaller moray eels. In addition, females hunt for only one prey item per foraging bout, while males often hunt for multiple items. After hunting, yellow-lipped sea kraits return to land in order to digest their prey.
Courtship and reproduction
The yellow-lipped sea krait is oviparous, meaning it lays eggs that develop outside of the body.
Each year during the warmer months of September through December, males gather on land and in the water around gently sloping areas at high tide.
When a male detects a female, he chases the female and begins courtship.
The female yellow-lipped sea kraits then lay as many as 10 eggs per clutch. The eggs are deposited in crevices where they remain until hatching. These eggs are very rarely found in the wild; only two nests have been definitively reported throughout the entire range of the species.
Interaction with humans
Because yellow-lipped sea kraits spend much of their time on land, they are often encountered by humans. They are frequently found in the water intake and exhaust pipes of boats. They are also attracted to light and can be distracted by artificial sources of light, including hotels and other buildings, on coasts.
Fewer bites from this species are recorded compared to other venomous species such as cobras and vipers, as it is less aggressive and tends to avoid humans. If they do bite, it is usually in self-defense when accidentally grabbed. Most sea snake bites occur when fishermen attempt to untangle the snakes from their fishing nets.
In the Philippines, yellow-lipped sea kraits are caught for their skin and meat; the meat is smoked and exported for use in Japanese cuisine. The smoked meat of a related Laticauda species, the black-banded sea krait, is used in Okinawan cuisine to make irabu-jiru ([] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: no text (help), irabu soup).
Venom
When something is bitten by a yellow-lipped sea krait, the venom affects the muscles and the nerves. The venom of a yellow-lipped sea krait is said to be 10 times more deadly than the venom of a rattlesnake. In a single bite, a yellow-lipped sea krait can give more than 12 times the venom needed to kill a human. They don't recognize humans as prey or predator so they avoid swimmers and divers and rarely bite them.
See also
In Spanish: Laticauda colubrina para niños
