Figure 1.

Ambient temperatures on a small island (Signal Islet, New Caledonia) and body temperatures of a male sea krait (Laticauda laticaudata) on that island over a seven-day period in January 2006. Thermal regimes were monitored with data-loggers (ACR SmartButton data Loggers: ±0.5°C, sampling rate 5 min excepted for the snake, see text); all sites other than the occupied shearwater burrow provided cooler and/or more variable temperatures than did the burrow used by the snake from 5 to 8 January (open: 35.3 ± 13.4°C, ‘dry’ beach rock: 29.1 ± 3.6°C, intertidal beach rock: 26.5 ± 2.0°C, vacant sea bird burrow: 28.1 ± 0.4°C). Beach rocks and vacant bird burrows are frequently used as shelters by L. laticaudata (Bonnet et al. 2009). Thin black line indicates open; thick grey line indicates ‘dry’ beach rock; thin grey line indicates intertidal beachrock; thick broken black dashes indicate vacant seabird burrow; thick black line indicates L. laticaudata (adult male); thin broken grey dashes indicate constant 37.5°C temperature).