Marine Reptiles

Two color morphs of the pelagic yellow-bellied sea snake, Pelamis platura, from different locations of Costa Rica: Snake venomics, toxicity, and neutralization by antivenom

“…The ability of the CSL antivenom in neutralizing the toxicity of the venoms of true sea snakes as well as that of the taxonomically divergent yellow-lipped sea krait, Laticauda colubrina [75], is consistent with the parallel but independent streamlining of both marine lineages, and the low level of phylogenetic variation of their 3FTxs [53,76].…”

“…Only 100 species in the snake lineages Acrochordidae, Laticaudinae, Homolopsidae, and Hydrophiini have independently colonized marine habitats [76]. The Hydrophiini, with 60 species in 19 genera, are the most diverse and widely distributed of all the lineages of marine snakes [20,77].…”

Total body water and water turnover rates in the estuarine diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) during the transition from dormancy to activity

“…Several reptilian species take advantage of the temporal availability of resources in estuaries (Dunson, 1970;Dunson, 1980;Dunson, 1986;Ellis, 1981;Taplin et al, 1982;Mazzotti et al, 1986;Lillywhite and Ellis, 1994;Leslie and Spotila, 2000;Lee et al, 2006), but there are very few that live entirely within the estuarine habitat. Of the estuarine turtles, the diamondback terrapin, Malaclemys terrapin (Schwartz 1955), is the only species endemic to estuarine habitats in the temperate zone (Hart and Lee, 2006;Rasmussen et al, 2011), and can tolerate brackish to hypersaline conditions. This North American emydid turtle occurs exclusively in tidally influenced coastal salt marshes, bays, lagoons, mud and grass flats, and creeks from Cape Cod, MA, USA, to Corpus Christi, TX, USA (Ernst et al, 1994).…”

Sea snakes in Australian waters (Serpentes: subfamilies Hydrophiinae and Laticaudinae)—a review with an updated identification key

“…Smith (1926) regarded H. ocellatus to be a subspecies of H. ornatus and referred Australian specimens previously included in H. ornatus to it. Later, H. o. ocellatus was raised to species level because of its distinctive DNA, colour pattern and a higher number of midbody scale rows compared with H. o. ornatus in Asia | (Rasmussen, Murphy, et al, 2011;L. A. Smith, 1974).…”