Green moray eel

곰치(바다뱀장어)

About 2 m long, the green moray looks green because yellow mucus covers its blue skin. A second set of jaws in its throat shoots forward to grab prey and drag it down. By day it hides in rock crevices.

See it on the 3D globe →

At a glance

Class: Fish
Diet: Fish eater
Length: about 1.8 m
Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN LC)
Habitat: coral reefs, coasts

Quick answers

Where does the Green moray eel live?

It lives in coral reefs, coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.

How big is the Green moray eel?

It grows to about 1.8 m.

What does the Green moray eel eat?

Its diet: fish eater.

Is the Green moray eel endangered?

It is listed as Least Concern (IUCN LC).

The green moray is a big moray eel of the western Atlantic Ocean. It lives from Long Island, New York, to Bermuda, the northern Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, on reefs and in mangroves down to about 40 metres deep. It can grow up to 2.5 metres long, the largest moray of the tropical Atlantic.

Its colour is a trick. Under a yellow layer of slimy mucus, the skin is actually darker, so the eel looks green. It is rated Least Concern by the IUCN. The green moray is most active at night and spends the day hidden in crevices. A second set of jaws in its throat, typical of morays, helps pull prey down, as the card notes.

A hidden hunter

Green morays are mostly nocturnal. Tracking in a mangrove bay in St. Croix found most eels hiding by day and moving at night, with a home range of about 5.8 hectares. They eat fish and crabs. Some moray eels even hunt together with other fish, and Brazilian snapper seem to recruit green morays while feeding in mangroves. It belongs to the family Muraenidae and is found at depths down to about 40 metres, from rocky reefs to mangrove estuaries.

Safe to eat?

People usually do not eat green morays, because they can carry a toxin that causes ciguatera fish poisoning. The main threat is only occasional capture for public aquariums. Morays in general are often undercounted because they hide so well in crevices. It is understudied: scientists say moray eels are often undercounted by usual visual surveys because they hide so well.

Fun facts

Its skin is actually dark blue-brown; a yellow coat of mucus makes it look green.
The green colour comes from mucus, not from the skin itself.
In a St. Croix study, larger eels were the ones that moved out to offshore reefs.
Morays are rated Least Concern even though they are under-studied.