Wiggle and glide: fine-scale telemetry reveals unique diving strategies in benthic-foraging sea snakes
Date
2025
Authors
Coppersmith, S.
Goiran, C.
Sanders, K.L.
Crowe-Riddell, J.M.
Chateau, O.
Shine, R.
Udyawer, V.
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Journal article
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Movement Ecology, 2025; 13(1):62-1-62-17
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Shannon Coppersmith, Claire Goiran, Kate Laura Sanders, Jenna Margaret Crowe-Riddell, Olivier Chateau, Richard Shine, and Vinay Udyawer
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Abstract
Background: The efficient acquisition of two critical but spatially separated resources –food and oxygen– governs the daily movements and diving patterns of air-breathing aquatic animals. Unlike pinnipeds, turtles and seabirds, fully marine (‘true’) sea snakes spend their entire lifecycle at sea and have evolved specialised movement behaviours. However, fine-scale data on the diving behaviour of free-ranging sea snakes remain scarce, limiting our understanding of their ecology and vulnerability to anthropogenic threats. Methods: We used acoustic telemetry to track five individuals of two benthic-foraging sea snake species (Hydrophis stokesii, H. major) in Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia, and Baie des Citrons, New Caledonia. Each snake was continuously tracked using a directional hydrophone for up to 18 h, generating high-resolution, three-dimensional dive paths. After filtering, we analysed 106 dives from 46 h of tracking. Results: Sea snakes primarily conducted U- and S-shaped dives and spent on average 97.2% of their time submerged. Most U-shaped dives were characterised by limited vertical and horizontal movement. S-shaped dives were more complex, with variable time on the seafloor and occasionally interrupted gradual ascents. Dive duration was positively correlated with post-dive surface interval, while depth and duration of the gradual ascent phase were influenced by environmental depth. We also identified distinctive, repetitive undulations (‘wiggles’) in the depth profiles of several dives completed by all three tracked H. stokesii. Conclusions: These high-resolution data provide the first insights into the fine-scale diving patterns of benthicforaging sea snakes. Like surface-foraging species, they appear to regulate air intake based on environmental depth and may be neutrally buoyant in the gradual ascent phase of S-shaped dives. We hypothesise that this phase facilitates efficient horizontal travel, despite potential increases in predation risk. The ‘wiggles’ observed in H. stokesii may have a functional role in buoyancy control, energy conservation, or foraging. Our study contributes to a deeper understanding of sea snake diving strategies, with implications for their ecology, physiology, and conservation.
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© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.