Real sea serpents
There really are sea serpents! However, they aren’t strange, giant
monsters. They are simply real snakes. They’re much like the snakes that
live on land, except that they spend their lives in the sea.
Even though sea snakes make their home in the water, they can’t get
oxygen from the water as fish do. They are air breathers, just like
theii’ land cousins.
Some sea snakes come ashore to lay eggs. But other kinds never come
ashore at all— their young are born right in the water. If one of
these sea snakes is cast ashore, it is almost as helpless as a fish out
of water. It can’t crawl as land snakes do.
A sea snake isn’t shaped quite the same way as a land snake. For one
thing, its tail is flattened out, like the tail of a fish. The tail acts
as a rudder when the snake swims.
Most kinds of sea snakes live in rather shallow water near the coasts of
Asia and Australia. The largest of them are about six feet (1.8 meters)
long and about three inches (7.5 centimeters) thick.
Sea snakes eat mostly small fish and eels, which they kill with poison.
A sea snake strikes at a fish, just as a rattlesnake or cobra strikes at
a rat or a mouse. The sea snake’s fangs squirt poison into the fish,
killing it. Then the snake swallows it down.
Most land snakes live by themselves, but sea snakes seem to like to live
in big groups. Sometimes thousands of them can be seen swimming along
together on top of the water, basking in the warm sunshine.
