#morays

morays have very poor eyesight but a good sense of smell, hence the two little antennae like thingys sticking out of their head

yeah, those are their nostrils. (also thats a california moray eel!! it has ridges on the roof of its mouth to help keep prey in place. plus moray mouths are just really cool because if they have a wacky pattern, chances are that pattern continues in their mouth!!)

speaking of prey!! they have a second set of jaws call the pharyngeal jaws. they're attached to muscles that act as rubber bands and can shoot the jaws forward to help pull prey down the moray's throat.

if you see a moray "yawning" or just showing off his silly shiny teeth, it's not a threat. that's how they breathe! they're pushing water over their gills with that opening and closing of the mouth motion.

they come in so many shapes

(dragon moray eel, a very colorful boy!!)

and sizes!!

(the banana moray eel, very small and adorable :C)

and some of them look so goofy and huggable

(the greyface moray!! isn't it the cutest???)

some of them might look a little scary...

(the fangtooth moray <3 they get a bad rep from what i've seen :(((( unfair.)

and some are just iconic!!

(the snowflake moray eel!! aka the millennial moray smh /lh)

IM GOING TO SPARE YOU

anyways, its tooth time.

some moray eels have blunt teeth for crustacean eating as opposed to sharper teeth for fish eating. it just depends on what they specialize in! you can usually tell by the differences in their snout length (short snouts for blunt teeth, long snouts for sharper teeth.)

it took me forever to find a picture of the snowflake moray opening its mouth, and while there definitely were pictures of the mouth opened wider, you can see the teeth better on the bottom jaw in this one.

see the difference between this...

and this?

this is a pattern that i've noticed over my months of researching morays which i thought was pretty interesting.

morays are mostly ambush hunters, hiding under rocks and lunging at prey. however, there are exceptions, like the giant moray eel which will team up with groupers to hunt. Since moray eels hunt in reefs and groupers hunt in the open water, the prey will be scared by one fish and eaten by the other. (for example, if the moray is hunting in the coral reefs and a fish swims away from the moray, it's likely that the grouper will get it and vise versa.) considering groupers eat pretty much the same things as morays (with a diet consisting of fish, shrimp, crustaceans, and octopus) it's no surprise that they do this.

most moray eels are nocturnal hunters, but the white mouth moray can be seen patrolling coral reefs in the daytime!! this wasn't something i'd seen until i watched a short documentary about morays in hawaii (link here!! the segment on the white mouth moray begins at 6:12 if you're interested C:)

their predators are sharks, barracudas, and sea snakes, which funnily enough is what floyd calls jamil so i don't know what he's implying but here we are! (and people talking about floyd wanting to eat us,,, does floyd think jamil wants to eat him? /j) but uh...when i was doing research on this i did find a video of a sea snake eating a moray whole so if you want to watch that it's here?

some morays can survive in freshwater, but they grow & survive better in brackish or marine conditions. the whole "freshwater" eel thing, according to the research i've done, is a myth and if you're going to keep an eel as a pet you should make sure you have the right tank conditions. the most commonly mischaracterized eel is the indian mud moray eel, or “freshwater” eel. it can survive in freshwater, but it does so much better in brackish conditions.

the larvae of the ribbon eel is transparent.