Sea snakes of Arabia by Balazs Buzas- Fujairah Marine Research Center

About the speaker:

Balazs Buzas was born in Budapest, in the capital city of Hungary, and came to work in Fujairah in 2014 as a zoo manager in the Al Mayya Sanctuary. Soon after his arrival, he got involved in marine research, pioneering a study of sea snakes with Dr. Csaba Geczy and Eszter Gulyas.

Balazs later established a database and museum collection on various marine taxa, such as sea snakes, sharks and cetaceans. He is currently working in the Fujairah Research Center and lives in Fujairah with his family.

About the talk:

True sea snakes of the subfamily Hydrophiinae are important and yet barely known members of the reef and coastal ecosystems of the Indian and Pacific oceans. At least 10 of the 69 known species of sea snakes can be found in the waters of the Arabian Peninsula, but the knowledge about their ecology and distribution is very limited. Our research in the waters of the Gulf of Oman since 2015 is some of the oldest ongoing sea snake research in the region. Balazs will talk about the hidden way of life of these forgotten species and the methods of studying them.