This sea snake pictured above is a newly-discovered species of highly-venomous sea snake found off of the coast of northern Australia. While this in itself wouldn’t be too newsworthy, the fact that it is covered from heat to tail in very spiny scales is quite fascinating. Here’s a close-up:

Very little is known about this creature, now named Hydrophis donaldi, as of yet, and it is likely to remain that way, as according to Bryan Fry, of University of Queensland:

Field observations are impossible, because the water is very murky and filled with lots of very large bull sharks and saltwater crocodiles, in addition to [highly poisonous] box jellyfish. If we tried to dive there, our life expectancy would be measured in minutes. The only question is which animal would kill us. My money is on the bull sharks.

Read More at National Geographic 

And thanks to xradicald for showing me this article!