Kloss's sea snake, Kloss' sea snake
Hydrophis klossi, commonly known as Kloss's sea snake or Kloss' sea snake, is a species of venomous sea snake in the family Elapidae. The species is endemic to the Indian Ocean.
H. klossi is named after Cecil Boden Kloss (1877–1949), director of the Raffles Museum in Singapore from 1923 to 1932.
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
Sea snakes, or coral reef snakes, are a subfamily of elapid snakes that inhabit marine environments for most or all of their lives. Most are venomo...
Venom is a type of poison, especially one secreted by an animal. It is delivered in a bite, sting, or similar action. Venom has evolved in terrestr...
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starts withThe body of H. klossi is olive dorsally and yellowish ventrally, with black rings, which are wider than the interspaces on the dorsum, but narrower on the venter. Head black with yellowish spots.
The type specimen is 90 cm (35 inches) in total length, which includes a tail 7.5 cm (3 inches) long.
The dorsal scales are imbricate (overlapping), smooth on the anterior part of the body, keeled on the posterior part, and arranged in 33 rows around the thickest part of the body (in 25 rows around the neck). The ventrals number 360.
The head is small, and the body is very slender anteriorly. The diameter of the eye is slightly less than its distance from the mouth. The rostral is slightly broader than deep. The frontal is very small, as long as broad, less than half as large as the supraocular. There is one anterior temporal. There are five upper labials, the fourth (or third and fourth) entering the eye. There are two pairs of chin shields, which are in contact with each other. The ventrals are only slightly larger than the contiguous scales.
