Banded sea krait

Description

The head of a banded sea krait is black,with lateral nostrils and an undivided rostral scale.The upper lip and snout are characteristically colored yellow,and the yellow color extends backward on each side of the head above the eye to the temporal scales. The body of the snake is subcylindrical,and is taller than it is wide.It has an upper surface that is typically a shade of blueish gray,while the belly is yellowish,with wide ventral scales that stretch from a third to more than half of the width of the body.Black rings of about uniform width are present throughout the length of the snake,but the rings narrow or are interrupted at the belly.The midbody is covered with 21 to 25 longitudinal rows of imbricate (overlapping) dorsal scales.The tail of the snake is paddle-shaped and adapted to swimming. On average,the total length of a male is 875 mm (34.4 in) long,with a 130 mm (5.1 in) long tail.Females are significantly larger,with an average total length of 1,420 mm (56 in) and a tail length of 145 mm (5.7 in).