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Spine-bellied Sea Snake
Hydrophis curtus
Hydrophis curtus, also known as Shaw's Sea Snake, short sea snake, Hardwicke’s sea snake, or spine-bellied sea snake, but often includes Hydrophis hardwickii is a species of sea snake. Like all Hydrophiinae sea snakes, it is a viviparous, fully marine, and front fanged elapid that is highly venomous. It is collected for a variety of purposes including human and animal food, for medicinal purposes and for their skin.
From the article Hydrophis curtus on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
This species is characterized by a wide variation in number of ventral scales and degree of parietal scale fragmentation. Both sexes possess spiny scales along their bodies but males have more highly developed spines. This sexual dimorphism in spines may play a role in courtship or in locomotion by reducing drag.
Range & habitat
It is a widely distributed species and like most sea snakes is restricted to warmer, tropical waters. Its range includes:
Persian Gulf (Oman, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Iran) Indian Ocean (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India) South China Sea (north to the coasts of Fujian and Shandong) Strait of Taiwan Indo-Australian Archipelago North Coast of Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia) Philippines (Panay) Pacific Ocean (Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Japan, New Guinea) Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Cambodia and Singapore
Wikipedia: “Distribution”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Hydrophis curtus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 200386.