A rare photo of a rare species. The Lake Taal Sea Snake (Hydrophis semperi) has rarely been seen or studied by outsiders, having only been isolated from its ancestral species in 1754 when Taal Volcano's large eruption closed the bay, turning it freshwater over time. The story... 
After my grant was denied (probs 10% success rate), a Masters student from @UST1611official took on the project with small gov't funding. After 18mo of planning, we arrived to the Philippines and to Lake Taal. Then high winds from a passing Super Typhoon killed ½ our field days..
When we finally made it out on the water, we were restricted to the use of slow, non-manoeuvrable traditional boats rather than speedboats, making it exceedingly difficult to actually capture a live specimen. Missing a snake meant a 50m loop that took 10min. No chance!...
We caught a number of Little File Snakes (Acrochordus granulatus), which, although were useless data-wise, kept things interesting and gave Marlan, my Masters student, good practice snakes to practice handling, pinning, and head holding for the hopeful real thing up ahead.
We further filled our time with Filipino cooking and eating, including a visit from Professor Rey Papa, which was uplifting but also sombre b/c we didn't have a snake to show him any success after 6 days of expensive fieldwork...
but on the 7th night, our hard work and patience paid off! It was a very quick spot and catch, but we got one! And the next day we secured the first ever venom sample from this remarkable species. We'll characterise the venom and search for anti-cancer-proliferation properties.
We tried our hardest for another 4 nights, but didn't manage to catch another semperi specimen (just more fileys). Such a low capture rate was understandable: the last attempt at semperi research took 6 months to get 10 individuals. We were lucky to get the one we did!
An international team effort, and an absolutely fascinating species! Still so much more to learn about it; it's currently listed as Vulnerable. If you'd like to spread the word about this special species, please RT the first tweet 🤓
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
