Laticauda colubrina
Silhouette: SeismicShrimp · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The yellow-lipped sea krait (Laticauda colubrina), also known as the banded sea krait or colubrine sea krait, is a species of highly venomous snake found in tropical Indo-Pacific oceanic waters. The snake has distinctive black stripes and a yellow snout, with a paddle-like tail for use in swimming.
It spends much of its time under water to hunt, but returns to land to digest, rest, and reproduce. It has very potent neurotoxic venom, which it uses to prey on eels and small fish. Because of its affinity to land, the yellow-lipped sea krait often encounters humans, but the snake is not aggressive and only attacks when feeling threatened.
The head of a yellow-lipped sea krait is black, with lateral nostrils and an undivided rostral scale. The upper lip and snout are characteristically colored yellow, and the yellow color extends backward on each side of the head above the eye to the temporal scales.
The body of the snake is subcylindrical, and is taller than it is wide. Its upper surface is typically a shade of blueish gray, while the belly is yellowish, with wide ventral scales that stretch from a third to more than half of the width of the body. Black rings of about... Wikipedia →
Recording0:19
Thailand · 2026
© cindy_w · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raja Ampat | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 2 | Komodo National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 3 | Tangkoko Nature Reserve | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denpasar | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
No species of the same family or order lives in Komodo National Park, so these are its closest relatives here: other reptiles.
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Banded Sea Krait sighting in Komodo National Park on a given day, based on 9 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 13th most-seen of the 19 reptiles we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October
In that month about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Banded Sea Krait in Komodo National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–April, July, September and November–January, the lowest months. That is one of Komodo National Park's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain against 200 mm in January.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Banded Sea Krait sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 3
Of the 3 parks where we can rate Banded Sea Krait sightings, Komodo National Park ranks 2nd at about 30%. The best odds are in Raja Ampat (Indonesia, about 40%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Banded Sea Krait is recorded against all the reptiles logged in Komodo National Park (9 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
