Galaxea, Journal of Coral Reef Studies 21: 7-8(2019) Photogallery Fluorescence emission in a marine snake Takashi SEIKO and Yohey TERAI SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Department of Evolutionary Studies of Biosystems, Shonan Village, Hayama, Kanagawa 240-0193, Japan. Corresponding authors: Y. Terai, T. Seiko Emails:
[email protected];
[email protected] Communicated by Frederic Sinniger (Associate EditorsinChief) Keywords fluorescence, Laticauda, marine reptile, sea krait Coral reefs are one of the most colorful environments on Earth. Light in coral reefs includes fluorescence as well as reflectance of sunlight. In fluorescence, mole cules are excited by illuminating light and emit longer wavelength fluorescence than the excitation light wave length. In coral reefs, fluorescent light emission is observed in a range of taxa including cnidarians (e.g. corals), arthropods and fishes (e.g., Johnsen 2012). In marine reptiles, fluorescent emission has reported thus far only from sea turtles (Gruber and Sparks 2015). Here we report fluorescent light emission in a marine snake. Laticauda laticaudata Linnaeus, 1758 is a semi aquatic sea krait (Elapidae: Laticaudinae) often ob served in coral reefs. We examined a specimen that was freshly frozen after death and subsequently thawed. This speci men was caught at Oganzaki, Ishigaki island, Oki nawa, Japan (24°27′12.4″N; 124°04′37.4″E) Fig. 1 Photographs of a sea krait (Laticauda laticaudata) illuminated with white light (A) without a filter, and ultraviolet LED light (B) through a blue light cutting filter (<490 nm). (C) A reflectance and fluorescence light spectrum measured from a pale band.