Deadly Sea Snake Washes Ashore in Orange County
An extremely venomous yellow-bellied snake, only documented to have washed ashore in California twice before, was found dead on in Huntington Beach Thursday, the Surfrider Foundation said.
A rare deadly yellow-bellied sea snake spotted on California shores for the second time in less than two months. As per the environmental group, the snake might have washed up due to warmer waters linked to El Nino weather conditions.
The yellow-bellied sea snake, or Pelamis platura, is normally found in tropical waters off of Mexico, Africa, Australia and Asia.
“They can swim backward and forward and can stay underwater for up to three hours”, the group wrote on YouTube. While that snake was found alive, it died shortly thereafter.
It is understood El Nino’s particularly warm current caused the killer creatures to swim north this year in search of small fish and eels, which they paralyse. But then also, it is recommended that people should maintain distance from it.
The snakes are more likely to attack if touched, the foundation said.
During a beach cleanup last week at Bolsa Chica State Beach, Surfrider foundation volunteers found the usual assortment of plastic bottles, discarded towels, fishing gear. Pauly said that the latest case is rare, but they were somehow expecting considering the El Nino year.
The appearance of the snake in Southern California was possibly related to El Niño, Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay stated in a blog post back in October after the first discovery of the snake in October.
However, the snake was already dead when it was found. In something as unsettling as the anomaly that is the plot of Snakes on a Plane, beach cleaners were shocked to find a rare venomous snake chillin at a California beach.
According to Heal the Bay, “Scientists are calling for the public’s help to confirm occurrences of these sea snakes in California and your sighting could be published in scientific journals”.