MORTALLY VENOMOUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1938, Page 7

MORTALLY VENOMOUS.

MAHIA PENINSULA SNAKE. IDENTIFIED BY EXPERT. ■ i (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Friday. The sea snake wliieh came ashore on the Makia Peninsula, and which later was sent to Wellington for identification by the museum authorities, has been identified as a common yellowbellied sea snake, scientifically called plamis platurus, one of the most common of the sea snakes. There have been ten other records of this sn'ake coming ashore in New Zealand. The snake is mortally venomous to man and of a species which there is every reason to believe inhabits New Zealand's coastal seas, although it is by no means common. "It is quite pr bable that it is to be found in the seas off the northern coasts all the time," said Mr. \Y. J. Phillips, acting-director of the museum. Reference to standard works on reptilian life and distribution, cotipled with known instances of sea snakes on the coast, lends strong support to Mr. Phillips' theory. Although the presence of these snakes has not hitherto been sus- \ pected, no doubt in future a more wary watch will be kept for them, and what in the past may have been dismissed as an eel .or lamprey will foe subjected to more careful scrutiny, but even if they only turn up as at present, New Zealand will have to forgo her proud boast of being a land without any venomous snakes.