{"id":467839,"date":"2026-09-18T11:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T11:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467839\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T11:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T11:08:18","slug":"rare-venomous-sea-snake-washes-ashore-on-orange-county-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467839\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare venomous sea snake washes ashore on Orange County beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Orange County beachgoer had a rare encounter with a highly venomous sea snake<\/a> after experts warned that the potentially deadly predator could come ashore with warming water temperatures associated with\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jackie Aguilar and her family were walking along Crystal Cove State Beach the night of September 11 when she said she came across the yellow-bellied sea snake, which hasn\u2019t been spotted in the region in nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

Video shows Aguilar using a palm frond to pick up the reptile. CBS LA<\/p>\n

At first Aguilar thought it was harmless, with video showing her using a palm frond to pick up the reptile.<\/p>\n

She ended up researching the snake and discovering how dangerous her encounter could have been.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat? A venomous sea snake on the beach!\u201d Aguilar told CBS LA<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all telling me like it\u2019s one of the most poisonous ones. And then I started researching it and I found out it was like the yellow belly one,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The starlight discovery was made at Crystal Cove State Park in Orange County. Valentin Wolf\/imageBROKER \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Certified marine naturalist Capt. Chad Steffen told the outlet it appeared to be yellow-bellied sea snake, which carries enough venom to kill a human.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are very venomous, this particular sea snake, but they\u2019re also very clumsy and sluggish out of the water,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A yellow-bellied sea snake. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not inclined to bite at all. They\u2019re not aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The snake<\/a>, which is fully aquatic, has a striking two-tone body, with a dark brown or black back and bright yellow underbelly, along with a flattened, paddle-shaped tail that helps it glide through the water.<\/p>\n

They are typically found farther south in tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. But experts have warned that warmer ocean temperatures associated with El Ni<\/a>\u00f1<\/a>o could bring them to Southern California.<\/p>\n

Experts warned that the potentially deadly predator could come ashore with warming water temperatures associated with\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o. CBS LA<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o is a natural climate phenomenon marked by warmer-than-average ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re having a very warm water year this year,\u201d Steffen said. \u201cA lot of interesting things this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time a yellow-bellied sea snake was spotted in the area was during the last El Ni\u00f1o period of 2018-2019, the Los Angeles Times<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Orange County beachgoer had a rare encounter with a highly venomous sea snake after experts warned that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1785,7,9,8,10648,47,4182,611,4130,95613,3586],"class_list":["post-467839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-beaches","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-el-nino","tag-los-angeles","tag-metro","tag-orange-county","tag-pacific-ocean","tag-snakes","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}