Hydrophis melanosoma Günther, 1864

Rasmussen, Arne Redsted, Sanders, Kate Laura, Guinea, Michael L. & Amey, Andrew P., 2014, Sea snakes in Australian waters (Serpentes: subfamilies Hydrophiinae and Laticaudinae) - a review with an updated identification key, Zootaxa 3869 (4), pp. 351-371 : 354

Hydrophis melanosoma Günther, 1864 .

Shuntov (1971) suggested that 19% of the trawled specimens from shoal waters of the northwest coast of Australian belong to Hydrophis melanosoma . This claim was cited by several subsequent authors (e.g. Cogger, 1975; Cogger et al., 1983; Minton, 1975), although Cogger (1992) considered the presence of H. melanosoma in Australian waters as “uncertain”. The identifications by Shuntov lacks validation by any specimen of H. melanosoma having been collected or reported from this area since. Shuntov’s identification, in our opinion, was incorrect. We therefore exclude H. melanosoma from the checklist and the list of possible Australian sea snakes.