View source for Stokes's sea snake

{{Short description|Species of snake}}
{{Speciesbox
| image = Hydrus Stokesii (Discoveries in Australia).jpg
| image_caption = [[John Lort Stokes]] 1846 ''[[Discoveries in Australia]]''
| status = LC
| status_system = IUCN3.1
| status_ref = <ref name="iucn status 20 November 2021">{{cite iucn |author=Sanders, K. |author2=White, M.-D. |author3=Courtney, T. |author4=Lukoschek, V. |date=2018 |title=''Hydrophis stokesii'' |volume=2018 |page=e.T176708A136257093 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-4.RLTS.T176708A136257093.en |access-date=20 November 2021}}</ref>
| genus = Hydrophis
| species = stokesii
| authority = ([[John Edward Gray|Gray]], 1846)
| synonyms =
* ''Hydrus stokesii'' <br>{{small|Gray, 1846}}
* ''Hydrophis stokesii'' <br>{{small|— [[Albert Günther|Günther]], 1864}}
* ''Distira stokesi'' <br>{{small|— [[George Albert Boulenger|Boulenger]], 1890}}
* ''Astrotia stokesii'' <br>{{small|— [[Frank Wall (herpetologist)|Wall]], 1921}}
* ''Disteira stokesii'' <br>{{small|— [[Alice Georgie Cruickshank Grandison|Grandison]], 1978}}
| synonyms_ref = <ref>"''Hydrophis stokesii'' ". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.</ref>
}}
'''Stokes's sea snake''' ('''''Hydrophis stokesii''''') is a large [[species]] of [[Hydrophiidae|sea snake]] in the [[Family (biology)|family]] [[Elapidae]]. It is sometimes placed in its own genus '''''Astrotia'''''. The species is [[Endemism|endemic]] to tropical Indo-Pacific oceanic waters.
==Etymology==
Both the [[Specific name (zoology)|specific name]], ''stokesii'', and the common name, Stokes' seasnake, are in honor of [[Royal Navy]] Admiral [[John Lort Stokes]].<ref>Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. (''Astrotia stokesii'', p. 255).</ref>
==Description==
Stokes's sea snake is one of the heaviest and stoutest seasnakes, with the longest fangs of any marine snake.<ref name="oshea">{{citation |title=Venomous Snakes of the World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bBz1-v1WUwC&pg=PA144 |first=Mark |last= O'Shea |authorlink=Mark O'Shea (herpetologist)|year=2008 |publisher=New Holland Publishers |pages=144 |isbn=978-1-84773-086-2 }}</ref> Its fangs are long enough to pierce a [[wetsuit]].<ref>{{Citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YsZ3GryFIzEC&pg=RA1-PA403 |title=Venomous and Poisonous Marine Animals: A Medical and Biological Handbook |publisher=UNSW Press |year=1996 |isbn= 978-0-86840-279-6 |pages=403 |author1=Williamson, John A. |author2=Fenner, Peter J. |author3=Burnett, Joseph W. |author4=Rifkin, Jacqueline F. }}</ref> Its mid-[[ventral scales]] are enlarged to form a distinct [[keel]] on its belly, the keel frequently broken up into two wart-like [[tubercle]]s.<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=io1TYkFAur8C&pg=PA234 |title=Snakes |author1=Greene, Harry W.|author2=Fogden, Patricia |author3=Fogden, Michael |pages=236 |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-520-22487-2}}</ref> ''A. stokesii'' is highly variable in colour,<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i2yTrfdnnq8C&pg=PA176 |pages=177 |title=Sea Snake Toxinology |first=P. |last=Gopalakrishnakone |publisher=NUS Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-9971-69-193-6}}</ref> ranging from cream to brown to black, often with broad black dorsal cross bands, or black rings.<ref name="Boulenger" />
Rostral as deep as broad; nasals shorter than the frontal, more than twice as long as the suture between the prefrontals; frontal longer than broad, as long as or slightly longer than its distance from the [[rostral scale]]; one pre- and two postoculars, 9 or 10 upper labials, fourth, fifth, and sixth catering the eye, if not divided to form a series of suboculars; two or three superposed anterior temporals; no chin-shields. 39 to 47 scales round the neck, 48 to 53 round the middle of the body. [[Ventral scales]] usually distinct only quite anteriorly, further back in pairs and not larger than the adjoining scales; scales much imbricate, pointed.<ref name="Boulenger">{{citation |last=Boulenger |first=G.A. |authorlink=George Albert Boulenger|publisher=London: Secretary of State for India in Council. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xviii + 541 pp. (Distira stokesii, p. 408). |year=1890 |title=The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Batrachia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q8AYAAAAYAAJ&pg=408 }}</ref>
Total length {{convert|5|ft|order=flip}}.
==Geographic range==
It is distributed from [[India]], [[Pakistan]] and [[Sri Lanka]] to the [[South China Sea]] and [[Strait of Taiwan]]. It also lives in all waters of tropical Australia.
==Human interactions==
There are no reported human fatalities attributed to Stokes's sea snake.<ref name="oshea" />
Stokes's sea snake is captured as bycatch in fisheries, for example in prawn fisheries in Australia.<ref name="iucn status 20 November 2021" />
==Habits==
Stokes's sea snakes sometimes form migrating groups in the thousands, drifting in meter-long slicks in the [[Strait of Malacca]].<ref name="oshea" /> They are [[ovoviviparity|ovoviviparous]], producing small broods of five young each mating season.<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5kHPPu353EEC&pg=PA1140 |pages=1140 |title=The ecology of the Indonesian seas |first=Tomas |last=Tomascik |publisher=Tuttle Publishing |year=1997 |isbn=978-962-593-163-0}}</ref>
==Taxonomy==
It was first described and named as ''Hydrus stokesii'' by [[John Edward Gray]] in Appendix 3 to Volume 1 of [[John Lort Stokes]]' 1846 ''[[Discoveries in Australia]]''. In 1972, [[Samuel Booker McDowell|McDowell]] resurrected the genus ''[[Disteira]]'' and merged ''Astrotia'' into it, although ''stokesii'' lacks the ''[[Oxyuranus]]'' pattern of venom gland muscle which typifies ''Disteira'', and differs from others in that genus by number of body [[vertebra]]e and heart position. [[Harold Cogger|Cogger]] later refused to recognize the placement of ''stokesii'' into ''Disteira''.<ref>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YXJcpUTklAwC&pg=PA21 |title=Venomous Snakes: Ecology, Evolution, and Snakebite |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-854986-4 |pages=15–21 |author1=Thorpe, Roger S.|author2= Wüster, Wolfgang|authorlink2=Wolfgang Wüster |author3=Malhotra, Anita }}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
*[[George Albert Boulenger|Boulenger, G.A.]] (1896). ''Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume III., Containing the Colubridæ (Opisthoglyphæ and Proteroglyphæ) ...'' London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiv + 727 pp. + Plates I-XXV. (''Distira stokesii'', pp.&nbsp;288–289).
*[[Harold Cogger|Cogger, H.G.]] (2000). ''Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, Sixth Edition''. Sanibel Island, Florida: Ralph Curtis Publishing. 808 pp.
*Dunson, William A.; [[Sherman A. Minton|Minton, Sherman A.]] (1978). "Diversity, distribution, and Ecology of Philippine Marine Snakes (Reptilia, Serpentes)". ''Journal of Herpetology'' '''12''' (3): 281-286.
*[[Albert Günther|Günther, A.C.L.G.]] (1864). ''The Reptiles of British India''. London: The Ray Society. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xxvii + 452 pp. + Plates I-XXVI. (''Hydrophis stokesii'', p.&nbsp;363).
*Rasmussen, A.R. (1997). "Systematics of sea snakes: a critical review". pp.&nbsp;15–30. '''''In'':''' Thorpe, R.S.; [[Wolfgang Wüster|Wüster, W.]]; Malhotra, A. (editors) (1997). ''Venomous Snakes: Ecology, Evolution and Snakebite''. Oxford: Clarendon Press / ''Symp. Zool. Soc. London'' '''70'''. 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-0198549864}}.
*[[Malcolm Arthur Smith|Smith, M.A.]] (1943). ''The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, Including the Whole of the Indo-Chinese Sub-region. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol. III.—Serpentes.'' London: Secretary of State for India. (Taylor and Francis, printers). xii + 583 pp. ("''Astrotia stokesi'' [sic]", pp.&nbsp;471–472).
*[[Frank Wall (herpetologist)|Wall, F.]] (1921). ''Ophidia Taprobanica or the Snakes of Ceylon''. Colombo, Ceylon [Sri Lanka]: Colombo Museum. (H.R. Cottle, Government Printer). xxii + 581 pp. (''Astrotia stokesii'', pp.&nbsp;396–400, Figure 75).
==External links==
* {{NRDB species|genus=Hydrophis|species=stokesii}}
{{Taxonbar|from=Q2591795}}
[[Category:Hydrophis]]
[[Category:Monotypic snake genera]]
[[Category:Reptiles described in 1846]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Bangladesh]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Cambodia]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Iran]]
[[Category:Snakes of Japan]]
[[Category:Snakes of New Caledonia]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Pakistan]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Papua New Guinea]]
[[Category:Reptiles of the Philippines]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Sri Lanka]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Taiwan]]
[[Category:Reptiles of Western Australia]]
[[Category:Snakes of Australia]]
[[Category:Snakes of China]]
[[Category:Snakes of Indonesia]]
[[Category:Snakes of Myanmar]]
[[Category:Snakes of Malaysia]]
[[Category:Snakes of New Guinea]]
[[Category:Snakes of Thailand]]
[[Category:Snakes of Vietnam]]
[[Category:Taxa named by John Edward Gray]]