IT has been the summer of the sea creatures first with sharks disrupting swimmers and now a reptile and cephalopod.

Visitors and lifeguards at One Mile beach at Forster on the NSW mid-north coast were shocked to see a highly venomous eastern brown snake emerge from the surf yesterday morning.

Beachgoer Olivia Moffatt, who took this photograph of the snake as it slithered up onto the beach right between the flags, told the Great Lakes Advocate that lifeguards blew whistles to warn people in the surf of the reptile in their midst.

“Tourists and locals fled from the water after the whistles were blown,” she said.

“At first people were concerned it may have been a shark, only to discover a 1.5m brown snake.”

“The snake travelled out of the water and remained on the shore for a while until waves washed up against it.

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“Raising its head, it headed for shade towards the lifeguard trailer and happily sat there until again moving up along the beach to the bush.”

“On the way, as we were leaving, the snake began heading back down towards the sea at a quicker pace, but was not in the ocean as we left.”

Brown snakes are known to frequent sand dunes along the NSW coast in search of rodents and other prey.

One Mile Beach, Forster

The species is considered one of the world’s most venomous terrestrial snakes and can grow up to 2.4m in length.

Meanwhile a little further south a blue-ringed octopus handed in to the Australian Reptile Park has prompted renewed warnings to beachgoers this summer about the usually reclusive — yet deadly — creatures.

But it was the cephalopod’s peculiar behaviour in captivity that had the zoo’s general manager and wildlife expert Tim Faulkner scratching his head.

No matter where he put it in various offices at the reptile park — about 15km inland — the octopus would always move to the side of the jar facing the ocean.

“I don’t know if it’s credible but I did it about 50 times,” he said.

media_camera Australian Reptile Park Operations Manager Mike Drinkwater prepares to release the deadly Blue Ring Octopus back into the ocean at Norah Head. Picture: Peter Lorimer.

“I don’t know why or how, I moved him in different offices ... I showed people, I even switched containers with a little bit more sea water from Brisbane Water to make sure he had enough oxygen.

“I put rocks in there to give him some cover but he didn’t use the rocks, he didn’t move from anywhere else than east ... even when I turned the jar around he would move over to the (ocean) side.”

Ms Faulkner theorised the octopus might have been able to sense where magnetic north was and took his direction from there.

The golf ball sized octopus was handed in to the front counter of the zoo by a member of the public last week however they did not leave any details of where it was found other than a Central Coast rock pool.

Mr Faulkner kept the octopus overnight before getting a colleague to release it back into the sea on a remote rock shelf well away from beachgoers.

media_camera Australian Reptile Park Operations Manager Mike Drinkwater prepares to release the deadly Blue Ring Octopus back into the ocean at Norah Head. Picture: Peter Lorimer.

Renown for their highly developed but little understood intelligence, cephalopods have been well documented as using coconut shells and other simple tools for defence and to seek out food in the ocean and opening jars with their legs in captivity.

In 2010 Octopus Paul spellbound the world when he accurately tipped all seven of Germany’s Soccer World Cup match results before going on to successfully predict Spain’s win over the Netherlands.

Mr Faulkner said marine restrictions and a ban on collecting octopuses from rock platforms had seen an increase in their numbers.

There have only been two recorded fatalities inflicted by blue-ringed octopuses, one in Darwin in 1954 and another near Sydney in 1967.

However Australian Venom Research Unit director Dr Kenneth Winkle said summer was “certainly a high risk time of the year’’ particularly for inquisitive children who were more prone to poking around in rock pools. “But fortunately it’s not common,’’ he said.

media_camera The deadly Blue Ring Octopus has increased in numbers since a ban on their removal from rock platforms. Picture by Peter Lorimer.

Dr Winkle said despite years of research there was no antivenene for the blue-ringed octopus’ extremely powerful neurotoxin, which unlike snake or spider venom was actually a marine bacteria that resided in its salivary gland.

He said the bite of a blue-ringed octopus’ beak was also so benign people would probably not even realise until their mouths started tingling and went into respiratory paralysis within minutes.

He said the blue-ringed octopus’ venom contained tetrodotoxin, a deadly neurotoxin which was also found in the Japanese delicacy “fugu’’ or puffer fish that was responsible for a handful of deaths there each year.

Dr Winkle said while blue-ringed octopuses were naturally shy and highly camouflaged, care should be taken while exploring rock pools.

He said people should never attempt to pick them up and if they suspected a bite to apply a pressure bandage immediately to “stop the clock on the venom quickly’’.

Originally published as Forget snakes on a plane, we have snake on a wave