This species is implicated in more than 50% of all bites caused by sea snakes, as well as the majority of envenomings and fatalities.

[2] The rostral scale is longer than broad, and is in contact with four shields; frontal more long than broad, shorter than the parietals; nasals in contact with the two anterior labials; sometimes partially divided; one pre- and one or two postoculars; temporals l–3; seven or eight upper labials, fourth or third and fourth entering the eye, the last sometimes divided; anterior chin-shields rather indistinct, separated.

Young specimens olive or grey with black transverse bands, broadest in the middle.

[4] It is found in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates),[1] south of the Seychelles and Madagascar, the seas off South Asia (Pakistan, India (coasts from Gujarat to West Bengal and Andaman & Nicobar Island), Sri Lanka and Bangladesh),[1] Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam).

[10][11] The average venom yield per bite is approximately 7.9–9.0 mg, while the lethal human dose is estimated to be 1.5 mg.[8]