Yep – I did a little bait and switch there with the title. This is indeed a snake, so my apologies to any ophidiophobes out there… and I guess for those of you with a fear of snakes, it gets worse. These guys are among the most venomous snakes in the world. But there is good news – first, they’re extremely unlikely to bite, so unless you’re seriously harassing the snake, they can swim right up to you and you don’t have to worry about being bitten. Additionally, they are rear fanged with relatively small mouths, so it would take them a combination of biting in a certain location and/or a bit of effort to wiggle their jaws open after the initial bite to get the fangs in place to inject venom. So in short, there is very little reason to be afraid of these guys, and they make for really cool encounters on the reef.
I’ve got a couple good video clips of these snakes, so expect to see more once I get the compilation video(s) completed.
