Yellow-lipped sea kraits, Laticauda colubrina, are proving two heads are better than one! According to a recent study, the poisonous sea snakes trick predators into believing their tail is a second head!

During a diving trip off the coast of Indonesia, Dr. Arne Redsted Rasmussen, of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ School of Conservation, came face-to-face with what appeared to be a snake’s head emerging from the coral.  Upon inspection, he noticed it was actually the sea snakes tail.

Rasmussen and a team of researchers examined nearly 100 sea kraits at various museums and in the wild.   They discovered that the sea kraits all had the same markings, a distinctive yellow horseshoe mark and black markings at both the head and the tail.  By using their unique markings and by twisting their tail  “around their length axis so that the tail tip’s lateral aspect corresponds to the dorsal view of the head, ”  it appears the snake has two heads.

The thick-tailed sea snake, Hydrophis pachycercos, also uses a smiliar two-faced technique.

Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait
Named for its distinctive yellow colored lips, adult yellow-lipped sea kraits can reach three to five feet in length.  This sea snake feeds on eels, fish and fish eggs. Although poisonous, sea snakes are at risk when searching for food in coral.  Predators include large fish, birds and other vertebrates.

The study, Head for my Tail: A New Hypothesis to Explain how Venomous Sea Snakes Avoid Becoming Prey, was published in Marine Ecology.

Source: GO Media - Written by Jace Shoemaker-Galloway - Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey under public domain.