Sea Snakes and Turtles - Reef Life of the Andaman

In this video we look at the 3 most common marine reptiles in the Andaman Sea. First we meet the banded sea krait, Laticauda colubrina, a type of sea snake, hunting for prey at Shark Cave in the Mergui Archipelago in Burma (Myanmar), and in and around the Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea of Thailand. The banded sea krait's venom is extremely poisonous but they usually ignore scuba divers and their mouths are very small.

There are two common types of sea turtle to be found in the Andaman Sea. First we encounter the Pacific hawsbill turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata bissa, which can be found on many dive sites in Thailand and Burma. Then in the Similan Islands we find the green turtle, Chelonia mydas. Turtles have a wide-ranging diet that includes cnidarians such as jellyfish and coral polyps. Sadly many sea turtles die by choking on or being poisoned by man-made debris such as plastic bags which they mistake as food.

At Donald Duck Bay in the Similan Islands, we witness snorkellers hand-feeding one of the green turtles which hang around moored boats in search of food.

As reptiles, both sea snakes and sea turtles must surface to breathe regularly before returning to the sea bed to hunt or rest