Yellow-headed moray
| Yellow-headed moray | ||||||||||||
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Yellow head moray ( Gymnothorax fimbriatus ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Gymnothorax fimbriatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Bennett , 1832) |
The yellow-headed moray ( Gymnothorax fimbriatus ) lives in the tropical Indo-Pacific from Madagascar and Mauritius to the Society Islands , north to southern Japan, in all of Micronesia and south to the coast of Queensland . It mainly inhabits reef roofs and outer reefs, as well as lagoons at depths of 3 to 50 meters. The fish also invade docks and estuaries.
features
The yellow-headed moray is 80 to 90 centimeters long and is strongly built. The head and neck are yellowish, the rest of the body is dirty white with black, elongated or round, widely spaced spots. In young animals, the spots are proportionally larger. Gender differences are not known. They are easy to confuse with other yellow-headed morays. In the case of the yellow- fronted moray ( Gymnothorax rueppellii ), however, only the forehead is usually yellow, the marble moray ( Gymnothorax undulatus ) has a light net pattern on a dark background and only sometimes has a yellow head.
Way of life
Yellow-headed moray eels are solitary, but often live with smaller moray eel species such as the white-eyed moray eel ( Gymnothorax thrysoideus ). They are likely nocturnal and feed on fish, crabs , cuttlefish, and octopuses .
literature
- Dieter Eichler, Robert F. Myers: Korallenfische Zentraler Indopazifik , Jahr-Verlag GmbH & Co., 1997, ISBN 3-86132-225-0
- Ewald Lieske, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish of the world . Year Top Special Verlag Hamburg, 1994, ISBN 3-86132-112-2
- Hans A. Baensch , Robert A. Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 6 Non-Perciformes , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, 1998, ISBN 3-88244-116-X
- Marco Lichtenberger: Moray eels in the seawater aquarium. Natur und Tier Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-86659-081-6
Web links
- Yellow-headed moray on Fishbase.org (English)