Thai National Parks

Hydrophis klossi, commonly known as Kloss's sea snake, is a species of venomous sea snake in the family Elapidae.

Geographic range

H. klossi is found in the Indian Ocean in Cambodia, Indonesia (Sumatra), Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand (including Phuket), and Vietnam.

Description

The body of H. klossi is olive dorsally and yellowish ventrally, with black rings, which are wider than the interspaces on the dorsum, but narrower on the venter. Head black with yellowish spots.

The type specimen is 90 cm (35 inches) in total length, which includes a tail 7.5 cm (3 inches) long.

Dorsal scales imbricate (overlapping), smooth on the anterior part of the body, keeled on the posterior part, arranged in 33 rows around the thickest part of the body (in 25 rows around the neck). Ventrals 360.

Head small. Body very slender anteriorly. Diameter of eye slightly less than its distance from the mouth. Rostral slightly broader than deep. Frontal very small, as long as broad, less than half as large as the supraocular. One anterior temporal. Five upper labials, fourth (or third and fourth) entering the eye. Two pairs of chin shields, in contact with each other. Ventrals only slightly larger than the contiguous scales.

Etymology and taxonomic history

H. klossi is named after Cecil Boden Kloss (1877–1949), director of the Raffles Museum in Singapore from 1923 to 1932.

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