An “incredibly” long snake-like animal has actually been found wriggling along a Northland beach around 6pm on Wednesday.
Nicholas Macdonald, 34, was going to Matai Bay with his buddies when he spied something glimmering in the low tide.
“I thought it was an eel or a strip of plastic. I walked towards it to take a look, and it was a snake,” he said.
Macdonald couldn’t think it was genuine.
LEARN MORE:
* A hisssstory of snake headings in Aotearoa
* The best, remote beaches you have actually (most likely) never ever become aware of
* ‘That’s a snake’: Beachgoers encounter poisonous sea snake on NZ beach
It was genuine, however a professional from DOC said what Macdonald saw wasn’t a snake.
“That is a giant snake eel (Ophisurus serpens) – so it’s a fish, not a sea snake,” said Clinton Duffy, a marine researcher at DOC.
“They’re very common around the upper North Island. You see them diving on scallop beds all the time. This one has obviously been caught out by the falling tide.
”As revealed by this video, their tail is pointed so they can bury themselves tail initially in the sand. You typically just see the suggestion of their snout extending.”
This was the very first one Macdonald had actually seen though.
“In all the time I’ve been heading to New Zealand beaches, I’ve never seen anything like a snake – let alone one as big as that,” he said.
Macdonald thought the creature had just emerged from the sand when he and his friends began walking towards it.
“It clocked we were coming. It dipped its tail into the soft sand and started slithering, crawling back into the sand.
“You can see by the marks on the ground and the way the sand moves how big it really was,” he said.
A snake eel slinked backwards under the sand during low tide at Matai Bay on Wednesday.
Macdonald said he was normally very wary of snakes, but was caught in the moment. His very first believed was to get his video camera out and appreciate it.
“I only found out afterward how poisonous it was,” he said.
There have actually been 39 sea snakes found in New Zealand over the previous twenty years, with the most discovered in Northland.
Sea snakes and kraits are likewise thought about native types under the Wildlife Act 1953 due to the fact that they show up here naturally from time to time on ocean currents.
They typically take a trip from more tropical environments, such as reef systems around Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia.
Two sea snakes have actually been found on our coasts in the previous 3 months.
