--- description: It hasn't been seen in California in roughly 30 years title: A Poisonous Sea Snake Washed Up on a California Beach and It Might Be El Niño's Fault image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Science](/section/science/) ## Science Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [animals](/tag/animals/) ## animals Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # A Poisonous Sea Snake Washed Up on a California Beach and It Might Be El Niño's Fault  by [Nolan Feeney](/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 17, 2015 5:54 PM CUT  by [Nolan Feeney](/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 17, 2015 5:54 PM CUT El Niño weather patterns could be to blame for the first [yellow-bellied sea snake](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-venomous-sea-snake-found-20151016-story.html "undefined") to wash up on a California beach in nearly three decades, experts say. A surfer found the highly poisonous animal—also known as _pelamis platurus_—on the Silverstrand Beach in Ventura County on Friday, according to the organization Heal the Bay and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Its sighting was the first known appearance of the species in the county as well as the northernmost sighting along North America’s Pacific coast, the Los Angeles _Times_ reports. The snake may have been drawn up toward California by El Niño water temperatures. Heal the Bay says the last time the snake, which is highly poisonous and typically lives in warm waters, was seen in California during the early 1980s during an El Niño. But don’t worry, poisonous sea snakes won’t start showing up en masse just because of warmer ocean temperatures. “Seeing a yellow-bellied sea snake wash ashore indicates that the animal is most likely ill or injured,” Greg Pauly, herpetology curator at the NHMLAC, told the _Times_ in a statement. \[[_Los Angeles Times_](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-venomous-sea-snake-found-20151016-story.html "undefined")\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4077433/el-nino-yellow-bellied-sea-snake/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4077433/el-nino-yellow-bellied-sea-snake/"},"headline":"A Poisonous Sea Snake Washed Up on a California Beach and It Might Be El Niño's Fault","datePublished":"2015-10-17T17:54:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:52:53.424Z","description":"It hasn't been seen in California in roughly 30 years","url":"https://time.com/4077433/el-nino-yellow-bellied-sea-snake/","keywords":["animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/animals/","name":"animals"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4077433/el-nino-yellow-bellied-sea-snake/","name":"A Poisonous Sea Snake Washed Up on a California Beach and It Might Be El Niño's Fault"}}]}] ```