Hydrophis fasciatus (Schneider, 1799)

Figueroa, Alex, Low, Martyn E. Y. & Lim, Kelvin K. P., 2023, Singapore’s herpetofauna: updated and annotated checklist, history, conservation, and distribution, Zootaxa 5287 (1), pp. 1-378 : 274

Hydrophis fasciatus (Schneider, 1799) — Erroneous.

Striped Sea Snake

Singapore records.

Hydrophis fasciatus —Sworder, 1923: 69.— Smith, 1926: 96.—K.K.P. Lim & L.M. Chou, 1990: 55.—K.K.P. Lim & F.L.K. Lim, 1992: 148.—L.M. Chou et al., 1994: 105.— Cox et al., 1998: 34.— Iskandar & Colijn, 2001: 134.—K.P. Lim & F.L.K. Lim, 2002: 148.— Das, 2010: 320.— Das, 2012a: 95.— Wallach et al., 2014: 340.—Chan-ard et al., 2015: 274.— Das, 2018: 112.

Remarks. Sworder (1923) first reported the presence of H. fasciatus in Singapore from a specimen deposited in the Raffles Museum. Smith (1926) examined the specimen, but appointed the locality as “? Singapore ”. Subsequent publications likely reference these two papers. Voris and Jeffries collected three specimens during their sea snake research in Singapore, but two were taken from the South China Sea near to Sarawak, and the other was brought to the Kangkar Fish Market with no specific locality recorded and has been excluded (refer to “A note on sea snakes in Singapore ” above). Additional specimens at LKCNHM were also collected in the South China Sea. As no conclusive evidence exists for H. fasciatus from Singapore, we refrain from including it into Singapore’s herpetofauna checklist.

LKCNHM & NHMUK Museum specimens. No specimens.

Additional Singapore museum specimens. Singapore (no locality): FMNH.