Talk:Sea snake

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Sea snake is part of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use amphibians and reptiles resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.
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Contents

[edit] Relationships

Are these snakes closely related to cobras, or not? The article says both. (Anonymous)

I don't see any contradiction in what it currently says. Perhaps this has been edited. The entry, particularly in the Sea krait paragraph where it seems to use 'sea snake' and 'sea krait' interchangably, is rather confusing though and could be better organized. CFLeon 04:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dangerousness

Does anyone know how dangerous the venom is? Do they attack swimmers? What is their normal prey? Get-back-world-respect 12:04, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I saw an episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel today that included a bit of info about sea snakes. They are indeed much more poisonous than land snakes. The species Hydrophis belcheri is the most poisonous snake in the world, according to the show. They said its venom is at least ten times more potent than that of a Taipan or Black Mamba. --OverlordChris 06:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

The venom of all species is quite toxic, drop for drop. But sea snakes are very docile animals and divers can usually swim amongst them with no problem whatsoever. They seem to bite more if they are taken out of water, there are many reports of people playing with them in water without being bitten at all. There's probably some variation due to species, mating season, females that are gravid, roughness of handling, hunger, etc. CFLeon 04:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

This site has useful information http://www.venomdoc.com/ Highlandlord 16:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yellow-bellied Sea Snake

I am familiar with the yellow-bellied sea-snakes found along the pacific coast of central america. The Smithsonian tropical lab in Panama had a couple in one of their tanks. They stressed the following:

Their venom is extremely dangerous. I spoke with someone who got lucky after being bit by one but it didn't inject any venom. He was moving it from one tank to another tank. It bit him, he finished moving it tot he other tank, then waited, and after 15 minutes he figured it didn't inject any venom, as he was still ok. I have heard sources listing them as the most lethal snake venom in the world (but most references I can find list the Inland Taipan of Australia as the most lethal).

they had no recorded instances of a swimmer ever being bit by one, even during the season when they show up in large numbers. However, they have bitten people when handled outside of the water, as in the case of the guy moving it to another tank, and (more commonly) in fishermen trying to remove them from nets.

one of the concerns of the Panama Canal was that it might get introduced to the carribean. A sea level canal would have definitely done this, but the loched canal has not, though in theory it might happen with ship ballast. Studies done with carribean fish show that they have no clue about respecting the sea snake and giving it distance like the pacific fish do.

- Andrew Apold

[edit] Editing

reverted vandalism by user 64.112.218.155, who is a repeat vandal. CFLeon 20:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Predators?

Do the sea snakes have natural predators? I have heard that tiger sharks feed upon them.

Rather seems like everything in the ocean tends to eat everything else, I'm sure sharks eat sea snakes all the time. I wonder how sea snakes sleep? They need to sleep, don't they? .. But I doubt they're buoyant enough to just float on the surface...

[edit] Images

I find it distressing that a large group of reptiles which are to be found on every seashore do not have a single image in Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons. Help. Can someone alleviate this scarcity of photos? AshLin 09:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Elapids

Is the reason that this article says they are related to cobras because they are elapids? If so then they are also just as related to Tiger Snakes, Taipans, Mambas, Coral Snakes etc. as these snakes (plus a lot more) are elapids along with the cobra. Or are they elapids that are particularly close in genus to the Cobra? Finally are they ALL elapids?

See my remarks below. --Jwinius 17:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Elapidae

Folks, in case you're not aware, both ITIS and the EMBL no longer recognize the sea snakes as a separate family (Hydrophiidae) or subfamily (Hydrophiinae). The experts include the Hydrophiidae in the Elapidae because nobody has yet been able to convincingly work out the phylogenetic positions of the various subgroups. For example, did the sea snakes evolve from the cobras and coral snakes, or did they evolve from the Australian elapids? Maybe the Australian elapids evolved from sea snakes. Nobody has any good answers to these questions yet, which is why the sea snakes are simply grouped with the elapids these days. Wikipedia should reflect this thinking.
On the other hand, there may be an argument for maintaining a separate article on sea snakes (although I think that would likely lead to more confusion down the road), but then lets be honest and admit that this group currently has no valid taxonomic status. --Jwinius 15:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

While the phylogenetic status of the sea snakes may be subject to debate among experts, the term sea snakes is in wide use and refers to a sufficiently discrete group of species that the group can be usefully defined and described for a general audience. The fact that there is a separate entry for the elapidae does not reduce the need for or value of a discrete entry for the sea snakes, for the same reason that there is still value in providing additional, more specific information on other elapids, such as cobras, coral snakes and taipans (all of which also have Wikipedia entries). Rather than delete the article entirely, it would be more useful to both expert and lay readers to simply note the disagreements over the phylogenetic position of the sea snakes in the article itself. -- User:ChosenatRandom
That there are currently separate articles for cobras, coral snakes and taipans has nothing to do with it: those groups are represented by currently valid individual genera. However, this article has a taxobox that describes sea snakes as an individual family. According to present day theory, this is widely considered false information, and even if you changed that to subfamily Hydrophiinae it would still be wrong. If left as a separate article, the solution would be to get rid of the taxobox altogether and explain to the reader that what is described here is only considered an unofficial subset of the larger elapid family. But, this might seem confusing to some people, and since the current article isn't that long, why not just merge it with the Elapidae article? The "Sea snakes" redirect could even take readers directly to the corresponding subsection. --Jwinius 13:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with ChosenatRandom. The article could use some improvement and would definitely need a section address the concerns with classification, but sea snakes is a widely used term and the other article (And the individually geni it links to) offer very little information. I don't have the time now, but I'll put the article on my watchlist and will, when I have more time, work on expanding it. --Scorpios 21:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Sea snake may be a widely used term, but explaining the problem with the classification remains awkward and the taxobox will forever be "corrected" by those unfamiliar with the taxonomy. Besides, I've been told that if you create a section in an article with the same name as a redirect that points to the article, that readers will be taken directly to that section. --Jwinius 23:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diet

Fish presumably? Could someone expand on this? Drutt 06:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do not merge this article with cobras!

Do not merge this article with cobras! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.176.148.67 (talk) 23:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] For the general public...

I understand the taxonomic changes, but to the layperson the marine lifestyle of seasnakes make them VERY different. Just adding sea snakes as a section in the Elapidae article doesnt do much for someone who wants to know about sea snakes. My thought would be to update the taxobox (with correction comment), certainly, but keep "sea snake" as its own article with a link to the Elapidae article. Currently the link "cobras" in the first line doesn't link to the Elapidae article but to a more specific article about cobras. I think the sea snakes should keep thier own article, however.

[edit] List of marine snakes

If anyone has a list of sea snake species (or perhaps genera), could you please add it to the list of marine reptiles? Thanks! — Epastore 19:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I found them at Category:Sea_snakes. I added those to list of marine reptiles, but have no idea how complete the list of snakes is. Can someone please have a look and see what's missing? Thanks. — Epastore 18:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
After a little research and a few corrections, I think the list of of genera in the taxobox is now the right subset (sea snakes) of the genera listed in Elapidae, but you may want to double-check to be sure. Anyway, the advantage is that you can now use this link, Elapidae, to check which species are associated with these genera. --Jwinius 02:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

Overall, this article is very well done. Good lead section, good description. I made a few minor grammatical edits, and overall I think the article about ready for GA status. There are a couple of larger issues that should be addressed, however, which is why I've placed this 'on hold' at WP:GAC.

First, regarding the various sections. I think the 'geographic range' and 'habitat' sections should be combined into one, called 'habitat'. They seem to be somewhat related, and I think that referring to geographic range could be considered a subset of the overall habitat.

Move the 'conservation status' section to near the end of the article. This section is relatively short, and contains relatively trivial information, and I think is overall less important than the biological characteristics like feeding, reproduction, and taxonomy. Likewise, the 'captivity' section should probably be closer to the end of the article as well, but above 'conservation status'.

Combine 'taxonomy' and 'genera' since these are related. I think the text of the taxonomy section would make a good starting paragraph, and then put the table from the genera section after it, all in one section. Recommend calling the new section 'taxonomy'.

This sentence (in the feeding section) doesn't seem to make sense: "One species prefers molluscs and crustaceans[8][7] (prawns and mentioned[10]) and few feed only on fish eggs,..." Specifically, prawns and mentioned what?

Other than these issues, I think the article is about ready for GA. One thing that could be added on the road towards featured status, might be more information on the cultural and/or economic significance of sea snakes, per Wikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles. Cheers! Dr. Cash 21:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Such a rapid response! Article promoted. Cheers! Dr. Cash 23:05, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi Dr. Cash! I combined the 'geographic range' and 'habitat' sections into one called 'Distribution and habitat'. I hope you don't mind the compromise too much, but my feelings regarding this issue are rather the reverse, since the larger regions where these animals are found strike me as being more important than the kinds of habitats that they prefer, which is on a smaller scale. Other than that, I applied the rest of your advice. I wanted to added a section called 'Sea snakes and man', but just dodn't have enough reference material for it (I need more books). The same goes for a distribution map (although I've learned enough to know that the one in the Snake article is just plain wrong regarding sea snakes), and for the geo. range data in the genus table. --Jwinius 23:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evolutionary language

While evolution is a widely accepted theory on our origins, I believe that this article should be edited to simply discuss the biological structures of sea snakes and not focus so much on evolutionary adaptations. The constant explanation of what different biological structures developed for takes away from the discussion and explanation of the structures themselves. I would therefore suggest a rewrite of this article to reduce references to evolution's role in sea snake's development and emphasize the sea snake's biological structures themselves as well as how those structures assist them in adapting to their habitat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.34.131.219 (talk) 03:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, much of the debate that has surrounded sea snake taxonomy for the past decades concerns how they evolved from land dwelling snakes (see section Taxonomy). I don't want to start a religious debate, but the subject of evolution is, as you say, widely accepted, not to mention basic to all biology, which is why it is not surprising that it is mentioned here as well. Removing all references to the concept from this article would not do the subject any justice. (I've toned down the opening sentence in the introduction a little, undoing somebody else's changes (which I never liked), but that's all I'm willing to do for you.) --Jwinius 13:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

This is just a suggestion, but I think someone should add different pictures. The only ones I see (as of 5/17/08) are pictures of Sea Kraits, which are a very special type of Sea Snake. I suggest adding different pictures of more common types of Sea Snakes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.72.128 (talk) 01:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I've added one of Aipysurus laevis, but besides another Laticauda image, there doesn't seem to be much more. I think only the German WP has an image we don't have, but it's of an unidentified species that looks like A. laevis, so it's not of much use to us. In other words, it appears we simply don't have all that much choice at the moment. Of course, you're welcome to donate! --Jwinius (talk) 10:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

"Sea snakes are exploited for their meat, skin and internal organs, but despite great numbers being killed every year, CITES does not afford them any protection..."

Not that this shouldn't be mentioned, but the term "exploited" is somewhat (read as "very") loaded as far as viewpoint meaning, especially when coupled in context with the second half of the statement which seems to represent an opinion that they should be subject to protection.

I will not change it myself, but perhaps a more neutral phrasing should be considered.

DJC (unregistered user), 13 June 2008

I see nothing wrong with using the term "exploited" in this context. After all, natural resources are "exploited" all over the world, whether it be silicon, sunshine or sea snakes. What's unfortunate is a lack of management when the natural resources are living organisms that are over-exploited (read as "very"), eventually to the point of extinction. --Jwinius (talk) 18:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)