Venomous snake washes up on Cox's Bazar beach

Enthusiasts in their hundreds flock and take pictures of it

OUR CORRESPONDENT | Published: June 15, 2023 23:05:36

COX'S BAZAR, June 15: A yellow-bellied snake has washed up ashore at Sugandha Point of Cox's Bazar beach.
With yellow colour belly, upper part of the creature's body is black while its rest part is also yellow.
The snake was first spotted on Cox's Bazar beach on Wednesday evening.
Several hundred enthusiastic people including tourists flocked to see the snake on the beach and they also take pictures of it.
Earlier in June last year, another snake of the same kind was also spotted on Cox's Bazar beach.
Md Sifat, a C-Safe life guard engaged in safety of tourists on the beach, said a tourist suddenly saw the snake in the sand in the evening.
After the news of the snake spread, many curious people flocked to see it. Many of them got frightened to see the snake.
Said Mahmud Belal Haider, former director general of Bangladesh Ocean Research Institute, said the snake is found in tropical ocean waters all over the world except the Atlantic Ocean.
The yellow-bellied sea snake lives in the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans in temperatures of 18-20 degrees Celsius.
This snake usually swims in open water of the ocean away from the beach. It lives in the upper layer of the ocean and are not seen under the ocean.
The head of the snake which is of venomous kind is long and its body shape is somewhat different.
The upper half of the body is black to dark bluish-brown in color while the lower half is yellowish. The tail is paddle-shaped and yellow with dark spots or bars.
It is called yellow-bellied because of this yellow colour on the lower body part.
Its body shape is small, smooth and hexagonal while shape of the head is large and regular. It has large eyes with bluish-black iris.
Belal Haider said the open sea away from the coast and coral reefs are their habitats; so people on the coast do not usually see them. That is why many people consider this snake as a rare species.
In the natural environment of the sea, its main food is fish. At the upper level of the sea, they quietly wait for prey and from the bottom, they attack any fish nearby.
This snake can breed throughout the year. The female yellow bellied snake gives birth to 2 to 6 babies at a time, with a total length of about 250 mm. The young ones are born with substantial fat bodies and can hunt from the first day of their birth.