crossing paths with the dog-faced water snake@semakau

dog-faced water snake@semakau from BeachBum on Vimeo.

6am....the hunters are out hunting....the Semakau intertidal zone is a rather unusual place to find a dog-faced water snake. We've encountered them in the Pasir Ris mangroves....hordes of them all looking for food...fish...they are expert hunters of small fish.

We came across this specimen (about 60cm long) [the biggest one seen so far was about 1.2m] whilst en route to the Semakau seagrass transect 1 just past the storm canal.

Although mildly venomous (if you are a small fish)...it is mostly harmless to humans...although getting sprayed with snake faeces is not a nice thing if you decide to pick one up and it does a 'helicopter' on you.

links :
http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/water_snake.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus_rynchops
http://www.ecologyasia.com/verts/snakes/dog-faced_water-snake.htm