[8] Rostral as deep as broad; nasals shorter than the frontal, more than twice as long as the suture between the prefrontals; frontal longer than broad, as long as or slightly longer than its distance from the rostral scale; one pre- and two postoculars, 9 or 10 upper labials, fourth, fifth, and sixth catering the eye, if not divided to form a series of suboculars; two or three superposed anterior temporals; no chin-shields.

It is distributed from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to the South China Sea and Strait of Taiwan.

There are no reported human fatalities attributed to Stokes's sea snake.

[1] Stokes's sea snakes sometimes form migrating groups in the thousands, drifting in meter-long slicks in the Strait of Malacca.

In 1972, McDowell resurrected the genus Disteira and merged Astrotia into it, although stokesii lacks the Oxyuranus pattern of venom gland muscle which typifies Disteira, and differs from others in that genus by number of body vertebrae and heart position.