A yellow-lipped sea krait hunts at Big Sister's Island on New Year's Eve, when the swimming lagoon was thick with fresh silt and overrun by Sargassum in their seasonal exuberance. With a flattened tail end, the sea krait easily propels itself over the coral and brown fronds, poking its head every now and then into crevices to ferret out the eels that are said to be its primary prey. Like other sea snakes, the sea krait is feared for its lymphocytotoxic bite, although the docile animals are seldom known to deliver serious doses of precious venom.
True sea snakes in the subfamily Hydrophiinae possess the ability to breathe through their skins, give birth to live young and flounder like fish on land. Sea kraits lack such full adaptations for the life aquatic, having a more limited capacity for cutaneous respiration. They have to return to shore to lay their eggs, using broad ventral scales for legless locomotion on land. Reef-lined isles such as the Sisters' Islands and St. John's are their favoured haunts, as the rocks and rubble offer nesting sites as well as protection from predators such as sea eagles and even portunid crabs. This two-foot long individual demonstrated its fearsome placidity as my duck manoeuvred for a money shot, bobbing its head above the surface every other minute to monitor the intrusion into its routine and issue a silent challenge to test its temper or suffer eternal temptation.
There's no escape from serpents who wind their way overhead and underfoot on both solid land and silky waves. An eye for anomaly led my duck to this Oriental whip snake basking at a location withheld to protect the reptile from fowl recriminations. Two uncles who passed by remarked that this creature is fond of disturbing children and insisted that it would grow into a deadlier green monster. Fearing for my sanity, I waved my duck at the snake which disapproved of the display and headed for higher perches where it could rest out of the grip of old men's fears.
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