Snake Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ snakes from around the world — with venomous status, family, range, size, habitat, and how to tell look-alikes apart.
Sea Snake
A fully marine elapid adapted for life at sea, with a paddle-like tail and no need to return to land.
Dusky Sea Snake
A small, dark-colored sea snake with a restricted range in Western Australian reef waters, of conservation concern due to sharp historical population declines.
Olive-Headed Sea Snake
A moderately large sea snake with an olive-toned head and faint banding, found in the estuarine and coastal waters of northern Australia.
Katuali
A banded sea krait found only around the island of Niue in the South Pacific, known locally as the katuali.
Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake
The most widely distributed snake species in the world, a fully pelagic sea snake found drifting across open tropical oceans.
Fine-Spined Sea Snake
A stout, boldly banded sea snake common in muddy coastal waters and a frequent bycatch species of trawl fisheries across the Indo-Pacific.
Elegant Sea Snake
A large, robust sea snake native to Australian waters, patterned with broad dark bands that fade with age, often found in reef and estuarine habitats.
Erabu Sea Krait
A banded amphibious sea krait from Japan's Ryukyu Islands, known for coming ashore to digest food, rest, and lay eggs, and long featured in local island culture.
Chinese Sea Snake
One of the larger and more widely distributed true sea snakes, recognizable by its bold black and yellow-green banding, ranging across coastal Asian waters.
Lambert's Sea Snake
A moderately sized sea snake native to the Gulf of Thailand, closely related to the large-headed sea snake and named after a naturalist collector.
Shark Bay Sea Snake
A regionally endemic sea snake restricted to the seagrass and reef habitats of Shark Bay in Western Australia.
Ornate Sea Snake
A moderately robust sea snake with variable, often diamond-shaped dorsal markings, found across coral reef and coastal waters of the Indo-Pacific.
Annulated Sea Snake
A widespread, boldly banded sea snake with alternating dark and pale rings, common in shallow coastal and estuarine waters across Asia.
Olive Sea Snake
A common and highly venomous sea snake of Indo-Pacific coral reefs, known for its curious behavior toward divers and olive-brown coloration.
Turtle-Headed Sea Snake
A small, docile reef sea snake specialized for feeding exclusively on fish eggs, with reduced venom and fangs.
Persian Gulf Sea Snake
A moderately sized, banded sea snake commonly found in the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf and surrounding Arabian Sea coastlines.
Stokes's Sea Snake
One of the largest and most robust sea snakes, with a thick body and disproportionately small head adapted for feeding on catfish and other spiny prey.
Banded Sea Krait
A distinctive black-and-pale banded sea snake that comes ashore to rest, digest, and lay eggs, unlike fully aquatic sea snakes.
Black-Headed Sea Snake
A sea snake with a strikingly dark head found along the coasts of Japan and Taiwan, occupying temperate to subtropical coastal waters.
Brown-Lipped Sea Krait
A widely distributed, boldly banded sea krait recognized by its dark upper lip, common on coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific and known for amphibious habits.
Rough-Scaled Sea Snake
A heavily built sea snake with distinctly rough, keeled scales, notable for possessing unusually large fangs and potent venom among sea snake species.
Slender Sea Snake
A slim-bodied sea snake found in tropical Indo-Pacific waters, with a tiny head and greatly elongated, thin forebody.
Spine-Bellied Sea Snake
A stout, small-headed sea snake with distinctly keeled belly scales, common in shallow tropical and subtropical waters and frequently caught as bycatch by trawlers.
Ijima's Turtle-Headed Sea Snake
A docile, egg-eating sea snake from the Ryukyu Islands with a blunt, turtle-like head and reduced venom apparatus.
Spectacled Sea Snake
A slender, pale-banded sea snake named for the ring-like markings around its eyes, inhabiting shallow tropical seas of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific.
Blue-Lipped Sea Krait
A banded, amphibious sea krait that hunts in coral reefs but returns to land to rest, digest, and lay eggs.
Sea Krait
A banded, amphibious sea snake that comes ashore to rest, digest, and lay eggs, unlike most fully marine sea snakes.
Viperine Sea Snake
One of the largest and most heavily built sea snakes, with a viper-like thick body and disproportionately large head, capable of delivering a substantial venom yield.
Anomalous Sea Snake
A sea snake named for its unusual combination of scale and morphological traits, found in coastal waters of the northern Indian Ocean.
Beaked Sea Snake
A highly venomous, fully aquatic sea snake often entangled in fishing nets, considered responsible for many sea snake bite incidents.
Short-Nosed Sea Snake
A small, rare sea snake with a short blunt snout, historically known from a few reef systems off Western Australia and now considered of high conservation concern.
Small-Headed Sea Snake
A slender sea snake with a strikingly tiny head and narrow forebody widening toward the rear, found in shallow coastal waters across the Indo-Pacific.
Hook-Nosed Sea Snake
A highly venomous sea snake found in murky coastal and estuarine waters across the Indo-Pacific, notable for its distinctive hooked snout.
Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait
A boldly banded, air-breathing sea krait of Indo-Pacific coral reefs and coastlines, highly venomous but generally docile.
Belcher's Sea Snake
A fully aquatic sea snake often cited for possessing an extremely potent venom, though bites to humans are exceptionally rare.
Yellow Sea Snake
One of the largest sea snakes, known for its bright yellow to olive coloration and slender, elongate body found across the Indian Ocean.
Wall's Sea Snake
A little-known sea snake from the northern Indian Ocean, named after herpetologist Frank Wall who described many South Asian reptiles.
Peters's Sea Snake
A distinctive sea snake with raised, spine-like scales on its head, found in shallow coastal waters of northern Australia and Southeast Asia.
Slender-Necked Sea Snake
A slender sea snake with a notably thin neck relative to its body, found in coral reef and coastal waters of the Coral Sea region.
Striped Sea Snake
A banded sea snake found in muddy coastal and estuarine waters across the Indo-Pacific, notable for its bold dark crossbands.
Leaf-Scaled Sea Snake
A small, rare sea snake restricted to a limited stretch of Western Australian coral reef waters, named for its distinctive leaf-shaped body scales.
Marbled Sea Snake
A small sea snake with reduced fangs and greatly diminished venom, specialized for feeding on fish eggs rather than active prey, making it functionally harmless to humans.
Northern Mangrove Sea Snake
A small sea snake found along northern Australia's extensive mangrove coastlines, adapted to tidal creek and estuarine habitats.
King's Sea Snake
A large-headed, robust sea snake found in the coastal waters of northern Australia, notable for its thick body and small tail.
Horned Sea Snake
A distinctive sea snake covered in small spiny scale projections, especially around the head, giving it a rough, thorny appearance unique among sea snakes.
Lake Taal Sea Snake
A remarkable freshwater sea snake found only in Lake Taal, a volcanic crater lake in the Philippines with no connection to the ocean.
Dubois's Sea Snake
A reef-dwelling sea snake of northern Australian waters known for its uniform coloration and potent venom.
Kloss's Sea Snake
A small, banded sea snake found in coastal waters of the Gulf of Thailand region, named after British naturalist Cecil Boden Kloss.