An “incredibly” long snake-like creature has been spotted slithering along a Northland beach around 6pm on Wednesday.
Nicholas Macdonald, 34, was visiting Matai Bay with his friends 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 believe it was real.
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It was real, but an expert 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 scientist 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 shown by this video, their tail is pointed so they can bury themselves tail first in the sand. You usually only see the tip of their snout protruding.”
This was the first one Macdonald had 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.
Nicholas Macdonald/Stuff
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 first thought was to grab his camera out and admire it.
“I only found out afterward how poisonous it was,” he said.
There have been 39 sea snakes spotted in New Zealand over the past 20 years, with the most found in Northland.
Sea snakes and kraits are also considered native species under the Wildlife Act 1953 because they arrive here naturally from time to time on ocean currents.
They usually travel from more tropical climates, such as reef systems around Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia.
Two sea snakes have been spotted on our shores in the past three months.
