Poisonous yellow-bellied sea snakes like this one are washing up on…
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The group only wanted to help clean the beaches of California when they were shocked to discover a venomous yellow-bellied sea snake out of water. So you can only imagine the surprise on the faces of the Surfrider volunteers, when they stumbled across a highly poisonous snake on the shores of Bolsa Chica State Beach.
The sighting, which occurred just around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, was announced on Saturday, December 19 in a Facebook post published on the nonprofit organization’s official page.
A venomous snake rare to Southern California was found in Huntington Beach earlier this week. Experts believe the warmer ocean currents due to the el Nino weather pattern have caused the snakes to travel north.
The species can stay underwater for up to three hours, and has the ability to swim both backward and forward. When they approached, they could see that the silhouette belonged to a dead yellow-bellied sea snake, and that it just happened to wash ashore. During the second encounter, the snake was found alive, but it died shortly thereafter. But then also, it is recommended that people should maintain distance from it.
If there are two on the beach, Pauly says there are likely more snakes out there in the ocean.
“It’s a rare event, but it was also somewhat predictable given that we are now experiencing a fairly dramatic El Nino year”. The snake normally swims the tropical waters off the coasts of Africa, Asia, Australia, Central America and Mexico, and Baja California.
Since the sea serpent that had washed ashore at Bolsa Chica State Beach was such a rare find, Sorentino’s son didn’t burn the yellow-bellied sea snake’s head but “kept the dead snake in a Ziploc bag in his refrigerator”.
“We were expecting this”, said Pauly of the Natural History Museum.
‘Their fangs are tiny and they can barely open their mouths wide enough to bite a person.
The yellow bellied sea snake has a bright yellow underside and a flat, paddlelike tail with black spots.
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In other news EchoExaminer, an exceedingly venomous yellow-bellied snake, only documented to have beached in California two times before, was found lifeless in Huntington Beach on December 12, stated the Surfrider Foundation.
