Sea Krait Life Cycle

Sea Kraits are a particular type of sea snake that come in a variety of species. Sea kraits are venemous and generally live in open water. They can stay underwater for up to three hours or so, but do have to surface then for oxygen.

  1. Traditional Birth

    • Sea kraits are born as fully-developed snakes, in other words, they develop as eggs inside the mother snake, but when they are born they are fully-formed. Sometimes they are even half as long as the mother snake at birth. At full size, a sea krait can grow to over two meters in length.

    Egg-Layer

    • One species of sea krait (the banded sea krait) comes ashore to lay eggs. This is the only species of sea krait to do this; all other female sea krait give birth to live babies and do not lay eggs.

    Rearing

    • Mother sea krait do not care for their young. A newborn sea krait must live and function independently without any assistance from its parents. One of a baby sea krait's first tests will be to see if he can swim to the surface to breathe.

    Mating

    • The mating season occurs in winter. During this period, the sea krait may become aggressive, otherwise, it is a fairly gentle species despite its venomous condition (an average sea krait can produce approximately 10 times the venom needed to kill a human being).

    Gestation

    • The gestation period for a sea krait lasts approximately four to eleven months. After that, the mother gives birth to her live baby snakes and then abandons them to live on their own.