The weird world of Australian sea snakes | Hacker News Reader

The weird world of Australian sea snakes

australiangeographic.com.au

77 pointsTomte41 comments

Along a beach on Yorke Peninsula I came across a sea snake in a 'puddle' as the tide was going out. It was about 30cm long, and skinny, and if I hadn't taken a second look I could have walked past thinking it was just a strand of seaweed. I took a second look because it's slight movements didn't fit what seaweed would have done in a puddle disconnected from the ocean. The snake was squirming in the puddle as the water was warming in the summer sun.

Excerpt from [0]:

"All sea snakes discovered so far are venomous and produce some of the most dangerous venoms known in the animal kingdom but most species are considered to be non-aggressive."

I could have stepped on this damn thing thinking it was seaweed, and I'm sure that would have inspired some aggression that I could have found existentially distressing.

In the most Aussie scenario possible, a passerby saved the snake by taking their thongs (flip-flops) off, picking up the snake between the soles of the two thongs, and taking it to where the tide still reached. It swam off energetically.

Unrelated story: A few hundred metres up the same beach, where the sand meets rock pools under some cliffs, my (at the time ~7 year-old) son calls out "I found a squid", then 10 seconds later "it's turning blue!". His mother and I both immediately screamed DON'T TOUCH IT and started running towards him. He didn't touch it. It was a blue-ringed octopus[1]. Australian kids learn about them in primary school.

[0]: http://www.mesa.edu.au/sea_snakes/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ringed_octopus

It's really sad that (most) animals don't understand when we want to save them from a perilous situation, and instead get frightened, and/or aggressive. Always lessens the feeling of having done a good thing to realize that the animal probably thought I was trying to eat it, with all the stress and panic that entails. But then again I might be humanizing them too much.

P.S. I can't imagine the stress of having small kids in an area with deadly animals. It's bad enough here in Austria, were there aren't as many dangers by far. Kids are too curious for their own good.

Here's some good images to simulate the stress:

https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_375/t_resize_width/q_86%...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NINTCHDB...

I'm an Australian, North Queensland native no less. I've lived amongst snakes all my life. Still, those photos scared the bejesus out of me.

I was intending to reply saying that it's not something that we're constantly, or really ever, on alert for, primarily because I live in suburbia.

However, and I don't think this is entirely representative, we live across the road from a gully (and the other side of the gully is a big main road, we're not out in the sticks or anything) and a couple of our neighbours have seen brown snakes in their backyards. Brown snake may be a boring name, but they're no joke [0]. One neighbor lost a dog to a brown snake, and have since moved because of that.

Thankfully, we've never seen one in our yard. We do have a couple of blue tongue lizards though, but they're beautiful[1].

Coincidentally, my daughter, right just now while I was writing this, pointed out a huntsman spider on the outside of the kitchen window[2] - don't often see them out and about in winter.

Seriously though, these animals don't factor in to the average Australian's daily life - even as a parent. The mortgage and school and sport fees, they're the universal killers.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_brown_snake

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-tongued_skink

[2]: https://imgur.com/gallery/aWwz3zx

Very rarely strange things happen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocho_(crocodile)

Here in the far southwest of the continent we've never had to worry about seasnakes, though as you say we are taught from age ~8? about stonefish, various jellies, sharks, blue-ringed octopus, conefish. Even normal octopus have a venomous bite, they just run away instead... we're also taught that any scratch contracted from coral is likely to get infected since marine-species bacteria is more aggressive or something... any diver will tell you that is false though.

I've had 3 Blue Ring Octopus sightings that I recall personally. The largest one I've ever seen was the size of a grapefruit; I had never heard of one so big before, but the tentacles were short and the rings were vibrant and it moved in my direction and I was veritably running on water in the opposite direction when I realised what I was looking at.

I had never heard of blue-ringed octopuses before. Thank you for educating me. From the wikipedia article:

>The blue-ringed octopus, despite its small size, carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within minutes. Their bites are tiny and often painless, with many victims not realizing they have been envenomated until respiratory depression and paralysis begins. No blue-ringed octopus antivenom is available.

Australia is a beautiful country and I have relatives there. I'd love to visit them, once the whole pandemic thing is over. I don't think I'm going to go swimming.

The beaches in South Australia where I’m from are relatively harmless, freezing, and full of Great White Sharks.

In a similar vein, this Australian treat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irukandji_jellyfish

I'm replying to a likely rhetorical comment, but to not go swimming in Australia is, I can't even think of an analogy extreme enough; going to Germany and not trying their beer, choosing not visit the Grand Canyon in the US.

But I'm going to totally ruin my positive intentions with another story: Pondalowie Bay, Pondalowie Surf Break, down on the big toe of the foot of Yorke Peninsula[0]. That boardwalk shown in the picture on the link takes you to one of the best beaches I've been to (but I'm not much of a beach tourist despite how this thread is going), but that boardwalk is patrolled by swarms of bees and horse flies (I don't know if they're technically horse flies, but they were fucking big and they fucking bit and one bite actually drew blood - a little pinprick, but blood nonetheless - from a fucking fly).

But the beach... it was worth the blood debt.

Point Turton[1], took the kids out a kilometre from the shoreline and the gradient is so slight that the water was still only just up to my neck that far out and it's so clear, no seaweed, just white sand.

Make sure you know how to swim though. Even without the critters, beach currents are invisible and treacherous.

At least dip your toes in.

[0]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pondalowie+Surf+Break/@-35...

[1]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Point+Turton+SA+5575/@-34....

I went camping at Pondalowie as a kid. I’m used to flies, but the flies there were like nothing I’ve seen in the 40 years since.

Actually, apart from sea snakes, sharks, snakes, reptiles, and spiders.. living in Au is pretty awesome.

I think you forgot about the drop bears

… and ScoMo!

(Is political snark allowed on here?)

No. He is a pretty bad PM, but.. no. Don't do this to HN

Oh, those are the killers. Thankfully they seem to only go for tourists.

A very brave ITV News Asia correspondent: https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/11864058-16x9-xlarge.jpg

Full video: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-13/uk-journalist-pranked...

Both are adorable.

Have to watch out for the piecosts too!

You forgot the jellyfish, bluebottles and scorpions. Even the platypus is venomous!

Tasmanian Devils deliver the highest bite force relative to body size of all mammals.

But the whole species is under threat from the face cancer thing [0] Tassie devils are beautiful little nuggety marsupials. Their name belies their shyness.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease

they are many things but beautiful they are not. They may be shy but they're also very blustery as well. Thse WB animators probably never saw one but they got a lot right.

That’s harsh. They cute as cute can be. Right up until feeding time. Terrible terrible table manners.

With a very small adult size of about a cubic centimetre (1 cm3), they are both the smallest and one of the most venomous jellyfish in the world.

Robert Drewe describes the Irukandji jellyfish sting as "100 times as potent as that of a cobra and 1,000 times stronger than a tarantula's".

Irukandji jellyfish's stings are so severe they can cause fatal brain hemorrhages and on average send 50-100 people to the hospital annually.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irukandji_jellyfish

And the stonefish and conefish. Know where you place your feet!

There's also Cassowaries, possibly the closest thing you can get to the experience of being chased by the Jurassic Park velociraptors.

Mind the trees too, the stinging ones. Dendrocnide genus.

I wouldn't say it's bad, but the government is doing a pretty terrible job to run the country

https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/COVID-19/leaving-Australia

There's a ban on overseas travel from Australia. If you're an Australian citizen or permanent resident, you can't leave Australia unless you get an exemption to travel or you're travelling to a destination that's exempt from the ban. Foreign citizens are able to depart Australia at any time.

Australia is the only Western country which has an exit ban on citizens. There are so many people who got rejected and can't leave Australia despite having dual citizenship.

The whole situation made me reconsider applying for PR and moving to Canada instead.

At the risk of contributing nothing and bringing politics to HN, Scott Morrison is an utter buffoon and impotent leader.

Whilst I entirely agree with that statement, what does that say of Anthony Albanese who, along with the party he leads, seems unable to land any political punches on said buffoon?

We have been bereft of leaders with vision for a long time. With the possible exception of Kevin Rudd, who wanted to build a clean-slate, nationwide telecommunications network for the next 100 years, and Julia Gillard, who despite having probably the most vile opposition in history, was _the first female prime minister of Australia_ and introduced the NDIS.

I am a dual citizen who is leaving Australia and returning to the states in a week's time. You are allowed to leave granted you are not planning on returning within 3 months or on compassionate grounds. However, getting back is a whole other story.

The issue is returning travelers relying on loose quarantine measures that have resulted in the outbreak we are currently experiencing here in Sydney.

However, I do agree with you, the government has failed on multiple accounts with the vaccine roll-out and is paying the price now. People's patience here, especially those from other countries, is starting to wear thin.

Yeah, not to mention the vaccination rollout?? omg. But hey, at least we're still better than majority of the world :). Better to be grateful right

Yeah once you exclude all those and the only venomous mammals in the world you only have dirt to worry about :)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-09/melioidosis-risk-spre...

Interesting read, I don't believe I've ever encountered a sea snake myself, but I have a general rule to avoid snakes. Growing up in Texas, I was used to looking out for the venomous ones we had out on the ranch, i.e., copperheads, water moccasins (aka cottonmouth), rattle snakes, and coral snakes. Luckily none of us have ever been bitten, but we have had dogs get bitten.

I recently found out that there was actually a lack of antivenom for coral snake bites in the US, but it appears that this has just recently changed [1].

When I first moved to Germany I asked some friends what sort of snakes I should watch out for in the forest; I got some funny looks and laughs from that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_snake#Antivenom_shortage

>When I first moved to Germany I asked some friends what sort of snakes I should watch out for in the forest; I got some funny looks and laughs from that.

Why? Because there aren't any snakes in Germany ?

There are only few venomous snakes in Europe, the most common one is European viper (Vipera Berus, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipera_berus) - but it's not deadly unless you get an alergic reaction. So most people don't consider snakes in Europe as a threat or deadly danger.

Exactly this. I think I've come across maybe two or three snakes in almost five years here, all were non-venomous harmless looking little fellas, and I spend a lot of time in nature.

I think that the yellow-bellied, or pelagic sea snake (Hydrophis platurus) is my favourite snake I've ever caught & photographed - because it looks so different with the fin-like tail; the fact it is apparently the second-most toxic snake on the planet; and how we had to charter a boat and convince the captain of what we were trying to do to get one!

Absolutely gorgeous creature - and apparently they also can't really swim - they just get carried on currents to get around!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com