'Extinct' highly venomous sea snake rediscovered in ocean's twilight zone

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Scientists were stunned to find a species of sea snake that hadn't been seen in 23 years curled up on the seabed in plain sight.

Last week, scientists conducting research on Western Australia's Ashmore Reef became the first humans to lay eyes on a short-nosed sea snake at the site in more than two decades. Olive-colored and critically endangered, the snakes have been thought locally extinct for 23 years.

It was, much to her surprise. Short-nosed sea snakes were once abundant on Ashmore Reef, according to D'Anastasi, but their numbers began to decline in the 1970s and bottomed out in the early 2010s. The downward trend is of significant concern to marine biologists. "Cable Beach in Broome, we've had a single specimen from there, and scattered distributions from the Exmouth Gulf," she said.

From photos, it's impossible to definitively identify the new specimen as either a reef snake or a coastal snake. It was found curled up on the seabed about 220 feet below the surface in the ocean's twilight zone. Not to be confused with the 1960s sci-fi show of the same name, the twilight zone refers to the region of the ocean that receives only a minimal amount of sunlight.

 

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