A surfer recently discovered a yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamis platurus to his friends) on Silverstrand Beach in Ventura County, according to officials at the Heal the Bay organization and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
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The yellow bellied sea snake usually lives its entire life in the ocean, but unfortunately, we live in unusual times.
Instead, take photos, note the exact location and report sightings in California to iNaturalist and Herp Mapper.
On Saturday, Greg Pauly, herpetological curator at the museum, put on rubber gloves, recorded its vital statistics, then used laboratory scissors and forceps to snip tissue samples for DNA analysis.
It’s been almost 30 years since a sea snake has been spotted anywhere along the California coast. Fearing that children might come across the aquatic snake, Forbes placed it inside a five-gallon bucket with a few ocean water and alerted local wildlife experts.
“Because the water is so warm here now, these snakes can swim, hunt and reproduce just like they could in the northern part of their tropical range”, Dr. Paul Barber, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA, told The Huffington Post.
As of September’s monthly tally, water temperatures along the central part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean have climbed even higher.
The snake died a short time later.
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Normally, yellow-bellied sea snakes limit themselves to the warmer areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
