Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I haven't researched CITES yet but does anybody know the deal on sea snakes? I can't find 'em for sale anywhere. It was just a thought that took off from there. Am I on to something? The first U.S. breeder of sea snakes for the herp market or just a crazy herper with a dumb idea?

I've seen plenty of sea kraits for sale, but not any sea snakes. Just not enough people interested in the sea snakes to go thru all the work of setting them up & careing for them I guess?
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CB

"I'm a truckin bassmole, and proud of it"

Im sure they are difficult to keep in captivity. You have to maintain salt water and feed them eels I think. Do any zoos have them? Finding out how they got them and care for them might be a good place to start.

The St. Louis zoo has at least one that I know of. Its picture is in one of Kingsnake's screensavers.

There were a few for sale a ways back in the classifieds. I think zoobotanicals was selling them, he sells alot of rare snakes. From what I hear, they are a pain to keep. Search the archives, BGF had some info on the subject awhile back.

AT LEAST NOW I HAVE AN IDEA WHERE TO START.

>>I haven't researched CITES yet but does anybody know the deal on sea snakes? I can't find 'em for sale anywhere. It was just a thought that took off from there. Am I on to something? The first U.S. breeder of sea snakes for the herp market or just a crazy herper with a dumb idea?

First off, there are two independent lineages of marine elapids. The true sea snakes are derived relatively recently from the Australian terrestrial elapids. The origin of the sea snakes occurred much longer ago and its not entirely clear where exactly (it does sit basal to the Australo-Papuan snakes though). The two lineages are very different and this translates to how easy they are to keep. I've kept both sea kraits and true sea snakes and the sea kraits are much much hardier. Some of the sea snakes are so delicate they will die overnight. They would never survive the shipping to the US. You might be able to get Pelamis from Costa Rica to arrive alive but they are very hard to keep. We kept three alive for eighteen months in 40,000 litre tanks. We've kept some of the true sea snakes alive for years in a 100,000 litre tank. Even so, the hardiest sea snake (Lapemis curtus, spine-bellied sea snake) is still very very delicate in captivity. So much so that they are pretty much impossible to establish and breed. We have a half dozen right now and are hoping for breeding this year or next.

Sea kraits, by contrast, are a breeze. The reason for this is that they return to the land daily and lay their eggs well above the high tide mark. So they are used to land and this makes a huge difference. They are shippable no worries from Indonesia to the US. They are, however, illegal in Florida because they are scared of them establishing (come on mate, it'd actually bring a lot of herp tourism). Don't know about importing straight into another state where venomous is illegal. You can ship from Indonesia to anywhere in the US via Garuda to Singapore and then a major airlines from there. There are no CITES issues with Laticauda. I've had them shipped out of Indonesia no worries. So it comes down simply to a paperwork angle on your side in regards to recieving them. The Feds won't care, it'll be a State issue. I know some private people have imported them in the past. They are easy to care for. Just a large tank of water and land. At least two cubic meters for one snake and three cubic meters (three meters long by a meter by meter of rock and water) for three to five snakes. They'll learn to take eels off of foreceps.

Cheers
B
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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
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Australian Venom Research Unit,
University of Melbourne
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Population and Evolutionary Genetics Unit,
Museum Victoria
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http://www.venomdoc.com

Eels? That kind of settles it. Where am I going to get eels on a regular basis that I can trust to feed to a sea snake? It took a few days to settle in. Thanks to the guys gave me the good info. Just another good reason why you LOOK into something before you JUMP into something.

>>Eels? That kind of settles it. Where am I going to get eels on a regular basis that I can trust to feed to a sea snake?

Little fresh water eels should be easy to get from any large live fish wholesaler.

> It took a few days to settle in. Thanks to the guys gave me the good info. Just another good reason why you LOOK into something before you JUMP into something.

Exactly. Good on ya

Cheers
Bryan
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Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Australian Venom Research Unit,
University of Melbourne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Population and Evolutionary Genetics Unit,
Museum Victoria
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.venomdoc.com