Our knowledge about the food habits of sea snakes and how it is associated with their distribution has seen much development through its description across a number of species available through published literature ex...Our knowledge about the food habits of sea snakes and how it is associated with their distribution has seen much development through its description across a number of species available through published literature except for the key threatened species such asHydrophis semperi. This paper aims to describe the food habits ofH. semperi through gut content and stable isotope analyses. We also compared data with the Little File Snake,Acrochordus granulatus, sympatric withH. semperi.Recorded captures ofH. semperi suggest that the sea snake tends to occur in the littoral zones and the shallower portions of the limnetic zone. Gut content analysis ofH. semperi have shown that gobies and eels are primary prey items. Halfbeaks （Family Hemiramphidae） were recorded as one of the Lake Taal Sea Snake＇s prey items which is considered as a new prey record for sea snakes. These extracted gut contents are conifrmed to be the temporal food preference ofH. semperi given our detected stable isotope signatures. It appears thatA. granulatus and H. semperi share common prey items suggesting possible diet overlap and resource competition.This study reports the ifrst account of the endemic Lake Taal Sea Snake＇s distribution and food habits which poses implications towards its conservation as it occurs in a restricted ecosystem that has undergone considerable habitat alteration.展开更多
基金financially supported by the Feasibility Study Grant from the Research Institute for Humanity and Naturethe Cooperative Research Grant from the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Japan
文摘Our knowledge about the food habits of sea snakes and how it is associated with their distribution has seen much development through its description across a number of species available through published literature except for the key threatened species such asHydrophis semperi. This paper aims to describe the food habits ofH. semperi through gut content and stable isotope analyses. We also compared data with the Little File Snake,Acrochordus granulatus, sympatric withH. semperi.Recorded captures ofH. semperi suggest that the sea snake tends to occur in the littoral zones and the shallower portions of the limnetic zone. Gut content analysis ofH. semperi have shown that gobies and eels are primary prey items. Halfbeaks （Family Hemiramphidae） were recorded as one of the Lake Taal Sea Snake＇s prey items which is considered as a new prey record for sea snakes. These extracted gut contents are conifrmed to be the temporal food preference ofH. semperi given our detected stable isotope signatures. It appears thatA. granulatus and H. semperi share common prey items suggesting possible diet overlap and resource competition.This study reports the ifrst account of the endemic Lake Taal Sea Snake＇s distribution and food habits which poses implications towards its conservation as it occurs in a restricted ecosystem that has undergone considerable habitat alteration.
