Reptilia · Squamata
Hydrophis platurusLinnaeus, 1766
Pelagic Sea Snake
Photograph by Emily Roberts, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Marine region, reaching 880 mm nose to tail.
Also called Yellowbelly Sea Snake.
Reptilia › Squamata › Elapidae › Hydrophis
- Grows to
- 880mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 3.5years
Longer than only 48% of all elapid snakes anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 219 to 5,710 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
33 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2009
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Colour on the back
- Black
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 3.5years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 25°C77 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 24.5–30°C76–86 °F
Stark et al. 2020
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 880mm2 ft 11 in
- Female length · mean, nose to tail
- 742.5mm2 ft 5 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 245mm9.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 185.5g6.5 oz
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Marine
- Habitat
- Marine Neritic
- Region
- Marine
- Mainland or island
- Marine
fish (Kamali 2020, Carranza et al. 2021)
Sit (Mirtschin et al. 2017)
(O'Shea 1996), diurnal (Kamali 2020)
Aquatic (Leenders 2019, Murphy et al. 2003)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 4eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–8eggs
O'Shea 2011, Marais 2005, Ray 2017, Mirtschin et al. 2017
2-6 (O'Shea 2011, Murphy et al. 2003), 2-8 (Whitaker and Captain 2004), 1-8 (Marais 2005), 1-8 (Ray 2017), 3-8 (Bates et al. 2014), up to 6 (Mirtschin et al. 2017), 1-6 (Carranza et al. 2021, Zeas and Alvarado 2015), 3-8 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Hydrophis platurus platurus LINNAEUS 1766 Hydrophis platurus xanthos BESSESEN & GALBREATH 2017
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1766
- Type locality
- Non given
Keeping one
2 ft 11 in × 17.5 in × 2 ft 2 in(88 × 44 × 66 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 2 ft 11 in (880 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 77 °F (25 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 186 g, the heaviest recorded for Pelagic Sea Snake — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Elapidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Hydrophis platurus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hydrophis-platurus
@misc{hydrophis_platurus_2026,
title = {Hydrophis platurus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hydrophis-platurus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.