A sea snake and a stonefish locked in fatal battle in Australia. (Photo : Rick Trippe)
An intense marine battle involving a sea snake and a stonefish has been captured and gone viral which reveals a lockdown of two of the ocean's most venomous creatures.
This rare opportunity was taken by an Australian fisherman who chanced upon a sea snake and stonefish fight last Thursday, August 28 off the coast of Darwin in northern Australia. He then grabbed the two creatures during their epic battle for a quick snap and then released them to continue their mortal combat.
The fisherman, Rick Trippe says to local media that he knows that this was a dangerous situation. According to sea snake expert, John C. Murphy from Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, fish are regularly eaten by sea snakes as part of their diet.
However, Murphy says that it is hard to determine what sea snake is in Trippe's photos since exact scale counts are needed to identify a certain species. Although he already agrees with Trippe that it is probably an elegant sea snake or Hydrophis elegans based on its color and location.
On the other hand, the fish in the photos is also difficult to identify and it is also possible that this could not be a stonefish at all as Trippe first thought, but a harmless frogfish according to Bryan Fry who is a biologist from the University of Queensland.
The frogfish and the stonefish can be commonly spotted in Australian waters where they use their irregularly shaped bodies and camouflage to hide between the reefs. What is unique with the frogfish is that they mimic stonefish and other venomous animals to ward off predators. The stonefish however, use their spines and toxic sacs filled with potent venom that can kill a human within two hours without treatment.
Sea snakes however, regularly eat frogfish and stonefish where the sea snakes are probably immune to the stonefish's venomous spines. Murphy says that sea snakes usually swallow the head first to avoid the spines on the fins that can puncture snake's tissue.
Murphy adds that it is still not confirmed whether or not sea snakes are immune to stonefish venom where more research is still needed to study sea snakes that dwell in many parts of the world as some of them are critically endangered.
Sea snakes are vicious predators that hunt for prey using their small fangs as they are injecting their venom. As their prey gets subdued, the sea snake continues to swallow its prey whole.
After capturing the two creatures in duel, Trippe says that the sea snake began to attack the fish again immediately upon releasing them into the ocean, however, this time around, the snake was victorious.
