Sea Snake Swim.

See Johnny stare. See snake check Johnny out. See Johnny wet his suit. See snake swim after minnows instead. See Johnny leave snake alone.

Olive sea snake

flickr: by Wibble_Roisin

So goes a theoretical kindergarten book on sea snakes in the ocean and the great respect we should have for them. Critter #2 on the most poisonous list are sea snakes. Keep in mind this list is in no particular order - all these critters deserve a place in it without discrimination.

Around the Great Barrier Reef, there are 14 species of sea snake, more or less. One of the most common is the Olive sea snake, which can grow up to 2 meters in length. It bears live young (as do all but 5 species), and can stay underwater for 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how active it is. Hey, you could hold your breath that long, too if you had a lung that grew all the way to your shins.

Even cooler, it seems that sea snakes can breathe through their skin, too, which gives them the distinct advantage of being able to get to the surface if they forget to look at their dive watches to see how long they've been down. (Just kidding, they don't really have dive watches...) They can actually meet up to 20% of their oxygen needs through their skin.

Contrary to popular belief, not all sea snakes are venomous. The Turtlehead sea snake, for instance, just eats caviar (a very high society snake). Being against violence, wearing furs, and all that stuff, it doesn't really need any venom.

But, the Olive sea snake does have venom. And it is very curious (just ask Johnny). Fortunately, as a general rule, sea snakes aren't mean-spirited, and won't try to bite you just because you're lookin' at 'em. And they typically have little fangs, and like to conserve their venom. Which is good because like the venom in a lot of sea creatures, the venom of sea snakes is very deadly. It takes up to 100 times as much venom to cause death in humans from a land snake bite as it does from a sea snake bite. Bummer for eels, which are oh, so much smaller than humans... =(

The usual follows upon being bitten. Voluntary muscle paralysis (and disintegration), brown or black pee (those were DEFINITELY the wrong vitamins), and eventually respiratory failure, cardiac arrest and death. The good news is that can take several hours, giving you enough time to get to a hospital and get some HELP!

Check out these VIDEOS on youtube for some more sea snake action, and as always, keep your fingers to yourself... ;-)