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Gymnothorax undulatus
Incredibly unique colour scheme. I think this might be a Giant Moray eel due to its relative shape and size or the Yellow-margined moray, but I am not sure. It was primarily yellow and spotted along its entire length. Decided it is a Undulated Moray eel.
Coral Reef. Saw this unique moray eel at Sombrero Island.
Spotted on Nov 4, 2014
Submitted on Feb 22, 2015
19 Comments
Congrats Andrew, your amazing Moray Eel has made the top 10 fish spottings in the '2015 Best Wildlife Photo' mission! Rangers are voting on the top 10 fish spottings, and the top 3 will be announced on February 5th. The top 3 spottings will be commented on here on the site, but make sure you keep a look out on our Facebook app page for the announcement as well! Congratulations on making the top 10! https://www.facebook.com/projectnoah
@AlbertKang: No, I am not 100% sure because I cannot see the body. We came out to this consensus ID with Andrew but if you think it could be another species you can make your suggestion :-)
WOW! Isn't this moray eel awesome and colorful.
@Marta, are you certain its G.undulatus?
@andrew, if you want to be certain, you can try to get it ID at this Facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/groups/idpls/?f...
Incredible!
Congratulations Andrew on spotting of the day great shot
Thanks so much Yasser for selecting this as spotting of the day. I am honored. Thank you Ashley and Luis.
Congrats Andrew!
Congrats Andrew, it's beautiful!
Andrew, this awesome close-up was selected as our Spotting of the Day! What a great shot to add to your collection of underwater creatures. Thanks for sharing your photos and congrats again for being recognized!
We've shared the news with out Facebook and Twitter friends as well!
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/projectnoah/pho...
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/projectnoah/status/5...
Thanks Mark, Marta, and Ashutosh.
Excellent fish. You've got a great collection Andrew. Thanks for sharing them.
I will remove my suggestion because it looks more like G. undulatus, indeed. See: http://www.hdwalls.xyz/images/gymnothora...
Yes, this could also be a possibility. It looks like it could be it. Did you see the body? :-)
Thanks Marta. What about the Gymnothorax undulates? I'll keep looking.
Blue eyes could also be Gymnothorax melatremus (Dwarf moray) but this one is like 20 cm long so it may be too small to be it.
The yellow magined has brown-yellow iris eyes.
The fimbriated (G. fimbriatus) also has blue eyes but the spots are darker. It could be it though. Is hard to say without seeing more parts of the body but I hope it helps :-)
Hi Marta. It was as think if not thicker than my arm. It's eyes were really, really blue, no yellow at all. It looked just like a giant moray, except for the coloration. At first I thought it might be the yellow moray, but the yellow moray eel doesn't have the freckled patterns like this particular moray. What do you think? Giant Moray, Yellow-margined, or Yellow Moray eel?
The ID is temptative. Do you remember its size and whether the eye color was ireally blue or more towards yellow?
Beautiful!