Hydrophis nigrocinctus

Hydrophis nigrocinctus, or the black-banded sea snake, is a species of marine venomous snakes in the family Elapidae. There have only been three specimens discovered. The first was described in 1803, and was collected in the Bay of Bengal, Sundarbans, near Kolkata. The second specimen was caught in the Malay Archipelago, in 1896. Over a century later, the third specimen was rediscovered in February 2015, and described in 2024. This also marked a century since black-banded sea snakes had been sighted in Bangladesh. The third specimen was found in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, namely, the island Dublar Char.^[2]

Hydrophis nigrocinctus
Conservation status
Data Deficient  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Family:	Elapidae
Genus:	Hydrophis
Species:	H. nigrocinctus
Binomial name
Hydrophis nigrocinctus Daudin, 1803
Synonyms
Disteira nigrocincta (Daudin, 1803) Disteira walli Kharin, 1989

Habitat

This species is found in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal: Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka and Thailand. Type locality: Sundarbans, Bengal.

References

1. Rasmussen, A.; Lobo, A. (2010). "Hydrophis nigrocinctus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2010: e.T176722A7290670. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-4.RLTS.T176722A7290670.en. Retrieved 19 August 2023.
2. Sarker, Mohammad Abdur Razzaque; Sanders, Kate L.; Ukuwela, Kanishka D. B.; Lovlu, Abu Hasan; Jaman, Mohammad Firoj (2024-05-18). "Rediscovery of the Black-banded sea snake Hydrophis nigrocinctus (Daudin, 1803) (Reptilia: Elapidae: Hydrophiinae) after over a century, with notes on reproduction and conservation status: Rediscovery of Hydrophis nigrocinctus from Bangladesh". Hamadryad. 40 (1 and 2). ISSN 2583-7818.

• Heatwole, H. 1999 Sea snakes, 2nd ed. Krieger, Malabar, 148 pp.
• Rasmussen, A.R. 1997 Systematics of sea snakes: a critical review. In: Thorpe, R.S., Wüster, W. & Malhotra, A. (eds.) Venomous snakes - ecology, evolution and snakebite. Clarendon Press (Oxford)/Symp. zool. Soc. Lond. 70: 15-30

External links

• Hydrophis nigrocinctus at the Reptarium.cz Reptile Database.
• Catalogue of Life: 18 May 2015 (http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/13207817 Archived 2016-03-15 at the Wayback Machine).