Thai National Parks

Hydrophis annandalei, commonly known as Annandale's sea snake or the bighead sea snake, is a species of venomous snake in the subfamily Hydrophiinae of the family Elapidae. The species, which is sometimes placed in its own genus Kolpophis, is native to parts of the Indian Ocean.

Etymology

The specific name, annandalei, is in honor of Scottish herpetologist Nelson Annandale.

Geographic range

H. annandalei is found in the Indian Ocean, in waters off Indonesia (Borneo, Java), western Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, and southern Vietnam.

Habitat

The preferred natural habitats of H. annandalei are shallow muddy coastal waters.

Description

H. annandalei may attain a snout-to-vent length (SVL) of 52 cm. Its coloration, which consists of dark crossbands on a bluish grey ground color dorsally, and which is uniform pale yellow or cream ventrally, is similar to that of other sea snakes. However, K. annandalei can be identified by its high number of dorsal scale rows, 74–93 at midbody.

Reproduction

H. annandalei is viviparous.

This article uses material from Wikipedia released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike Licence 3.0. Eventual photos shown in this page may or may not be from Wikipedia, please see the license details for photos in photo by-lines.