How does the yellow-bellied sea snake clean accumulated epibionts like barnacles from its body during shedding?
Answer
By tying itself into a tight knot and running the knot along its body.
Managing skin shedding and removing attached organisms, known as epibionts, presents a unique challenge for this fully aquatic snake since it lacks accessible rocks or reefs for abrasion. To solve this, *H. platurus* employs a distinctive physical behavior: it coils itself tightly into a knot, sometimes maintaining this position for several hours. It then moves this tight knot sequentially along the length of its body from one end to the other. This action serves to effectively loosen the old skin layer and scrape off attached materials, including algae and various barnacle species, such as snake-specific barnacle species.
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