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Friday, April 1, 2016

A first spotting

Did you hear about the Yellow-bellied Sea Snakes (Pelamus platura) that washed ashore in Southern California?

There were several articles written about them see examples in National Geographic, Scientific American, and The Washington Post.

With the strong El Niño conditions this winter, and hearing about these sea snake sightings, you can imagine that I've been watching the wrack line closely.  

Not too long ago, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this on the beach:



I was a little hesitant, but eventually I was brave enough to flip the snake over:


Can you believe it?  Even rarer than a Yellow-bellied Sea Snake, this is the first sighting of a White-spotted Sea Snake (Pelamus albomaculata) in North America!

Okay, okay — April Fool!

Hope I didn't get you too excited.  (Perhaps you could tell that this snake didn't have a flattened tail, and that it was made out of rubber.  But it did make me do a double-take when I found it washed ashore!)

Enjoy the first day of April!  :)
 

5 comments:

Annaliese Hettinger said...

YOU TOTALLY GOT ME!!! hahaha. I was all fired up, while reading, to post this all over twitter, facebook, etc. HA! Nice one, J. Sones. Happy April 1. I'm still gonna post it because it is hilarious.

Chris G. said...

Well played, Jackie. :)

Akuce Chan said...

You got me! I was going to post this EVERYWHERE, you wicked, wicked girl!
Maybe I'll do what Annaliese is going to do, and post it anyway. Hahahahahaha!!!

Jackie Sones said...

What can I say -- there's an April Fools' birthday in my family (and others who like to play jokes throughout the year), so April 1st was always a fun day. A special Happy Birthday to all of the April Fools out there! ;)

Leth Benz said...

BAHAHAHAHHAAHA! Hilarious!