Highly venomous sea snakes wash up on Australian coast after stormy weather

Snakes: the beautiful snakes have washed up on beaches in Australia
Anthony Bannister/Gallo Images/Corbis
Hannah Al-Othman7 January 2016

Highly venemous sea snakes which normally live in tropical waters have washed up on Australia's east oast.

The yellow-bellied sea snakes have been spotted on beaches in New South Wales after being washed ashore in recent stormy weather.

The species, which usually sticks to deep, offshore waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, is highly venemous but not typically aggressive.

The snakes have very distinctive colouring, with dark slate-blue skin on top and yellow underneath, and a paddle-shaped, dark-spotted tail.

Carolyn Larcombe from Burra near Canberra saw one of the snakes on the sand while walking along Congo Beach, 10 kilometres south of Moruya.

"It was very quiet [and] I was able to put it over a stick and put it back in the water," Ms Larcombe told ABC News.

Australia: the snakes washed up on Congo Beach
Laith Walk/Flickr

Later that day, Ms Larcombe said she spotted a second, larger sea snake and also returned it to the surf.

She told ABC that she recognised the species from photographs and a snake she saw stranded at another beach around 30 years ago.

"I'm not scared of snakes; I was being very, very careful," she said.

"I thought they had a better chance of survival back in the water than up high and dry on the sand."

Yellow-bellied sea snakes are normally found within a few kilometres of the shore across the world, including much of Australia.

Although they prefer shallow inshore waters, they can also be found in the open water well away from coasts and reefs.

The animals are entirely aquatic, so it is normally sickness, injury or ocean turbulence caused by strong winds or storms that causes them to become stranded on beaches.

Australian Museum reptile expert Ross Sadlier told ABC News that the sea snakes found on Congo Beach were likely to have been washed south by ocean currents before falling prey to recent rough seas.

"Those that are probably a little bit weaker, or just unlucky individuals, tend to get caught up in that [and] then washed ashore," Mr Sadlier explained.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in