Description
This is an image entitled "Hydrus Stokesii" from Volume 1 of John Lort Stokes' 1846 book Discoveries in Australia. The animal depicted is Astrotia stokesii (Stokes' Sea Snake).
Date 1846
Source From the Project Gutenberg online edition of the work. The image is available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12115/12115-h/stokes1-28.jpg.
Author "Day & Haghe, Lithographers to the Queen."
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydrus_Stokesii_(Discoveries_in_Australia).jpg

Commonly known as Stokes' seasnake, Astrotia stokesii is a large species of sea snake found in tropical Indo-Pacific oceanic waters. A. stokesii is distributed from Pakistan and Sri Lanka to the South China Sea and Strait of Taiwan. It also lives in all waters of tropical Australia. Order: Squamata, Suborder: Serpentes, Family: Elapidae, Subfamily: Hydrophiinae, Genus: Astrotia, Species: Astrotia stokesii (Gray, 1846).