Seasnakes Mating

On a recent dive I came across a trio of seasnakes engaged in mating. The two males were much much briter than the larger female who I believe was probably in the process of shedding due to scale color and the milky eye color. What was interesting was the behaviour of one of the males. He drove off the other suitor despite both being wrapped around the female by positioning his body against the female and pushing the other male off. The 2nd male in the typical sluggish seasnake way moved around the female but couldnt rewrap his body against hers and eventually left.

The reason I am posting was the following activity by the dominant male snake was a behavior I have never seen before despite diving with these animals for years. The male rewrapped his body along the upper portion of her torso and while attempting to engage in coitus he began to tap her head fairly hard. The effect was to keep her head down in the rocks. I can only assume this was a dominance action and kept her head down and prevented her from swimming away.

As I reviewed the picture series last night I saw from this photo that the male is not only butting her head but has his fangs either in her skin or pressed against her head.

Just wanted to share!

NIce.

I remember my second dive on Okinawa. It was a night dive and we dropped in to a mass of what had to be a thousand sea snakes. All writhing around. A memorable night to say the least.

very cool, thanks for sharing that. never seen them mating before

Very cool, thanks for showing us.

Todd

I 've seen several couples aroun Pamilacan island ( Panglao - Bohol ) , all mating the same day .

Never saw them doing that again on the same site

Here is a decent picture of one of a couple :

Hey, That was such a fascinating thing to share, thank you for doing so!

Looks romantic They are kissing each other, so sweet

I don't like snakes but these pics don't turn me off

Great job!

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