Leaf-scaled sea snake

Description

Aipysurus foliosquama,also known as the leaf-scaled sea snake,is a critically endangered species of venomous sea snake in the family Elapidae.It is endemic to the Ashmore and Cartier Islands of Australia.The leaf-scaled sea snake prefers waters up to 10 metres in depth.In December 2015 a population of the snakes was found living in seagrass beds of Shark Bay off Western Australia.Previously,its only known habitats were some 1,700 km away in the Ashmore and Hibernia Reefs in the Timor Sea,from where it had since disappeared.