Stripes help this harmless sea snake fool predators into thinking its deadly

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-11-16 11:01

Australia; Pacific; NSW

Turtlehead snake Credit: Klaus Stiefel, Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

A harmless sea snake can fool predators into not attacking them but looking like brightly striped venomous snakes, say Aussie researchers - who tested their theory by dragging fake snakes through the water near New Caledonia, and seeing if fish predators attacked them. The researchers found that there were far fewer attacks on a fishing lure that was banded black and white, like a venomous snake, compared to a plain black one. They say this explains why the harmless sea snake (Emydocephalus annulatus), commonly known as the turtle-headed sea snake or egg-eating sea snake, is often banded like more deadly snakes.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

The banded colour patterns of sea snakes discourage attack by predatory fishes, enabling Batesian mimicry by harmless species

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Summary: Most venomous sea snakes are brightly banded in colour, and harmless species may benefit be resembling them - thereby fooling predators into avoiding them. As predicted by this idea, predatory fish readily attacked snake-shaped fishing lures that were painted black, but refused to attack black-and-white banded lures. Bright bands make a snake much safer in the ocean.

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Research The Royal Society, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).

Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Organisation/s: Macquarie University, The University of Sydney, Université de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, New Caledonia

Funder: The work was funded by Macquarie University (internal funding; no grant number) and New Caledonia University (internal funding; no grant number).

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