Red Sea Tube Eel
| Red Sea Tube Eel | ||||||||||||
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Red Sea Tube Eel ( Gorgasia sillneri ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Gorgasia sillneri | ||||||||||||
| Klausewitz , 1962 |
The Red Sea Tube Eel ( Gorgasia sillneri ) is a fish from the genus Gorgosia from the conger eel family (Congridae).
Outward appearance
Red Sea Tube Eels have a spindle-shaped, eel-like body that is pale gray in color. The body is scaly and covered by a layer of mucus . The head is short and slightly pointed. It is covered with opalescent spots. The animals reach a maximum length of 83 cm. As a rule, however, they are only 18 inches long.
Occurrence and habitat
The animals occur in the Red Sea up to and including the Gulf of Aqaba . There the red sea tube eel lives in sandy areas in water depths between 5 and 100 m. The animals live in self-dug caves in the sand, the walls of which are stuck to the tail with a secretion from a gland. The tubes are dug vertically into the sand and the fish stick upright out of these caves. Red sea tube eels live in flocks and lay their caves close to their conspecifics. In the event of imminent danger, the fish immediately withdraw into their caves.
nutrition
Red sea tube eels live on plankton, which they catch standing upright from their caves with rocking head movements. To do this, they move less than half their body length out of the cave.
literature
- Alberto Siliotti et al. A .: The fish of the Red Sea, Memofish-Book , Geodia Verlag, Verona 2002, ISBN 88-87177-43-0