Help identifying this mysterious eel

[JollyReefer]

Hi y'all,

Does anyone know what kind of eel this is? My wife and I found it and recorded it while scubadiving off of Moorea, French Polynesia. Near Tahiti. After researching its possible species, I initially believed it was a tesselata (honeycomb) eel. The coloring appears very similar between this eel and the tesselata. However, i have yet to find any photographs of tesselatas that have a pattern similar to this eel. They appear quite different in a side by side comaprison. Notice this eel doesnt have any of the traditional black orbs or honeycombs outlined by the white chainlink that is traditionally seen on tesselatas. One thought is that it could be a fairly young tesselata. It was only about 2 feet in length and tesselatas grow to upwards of 5 ft or more. So could it be a young tesselata whose pattern will evolve into thr more traditioanl tesselata look as it gets older? Or is this a different species?

What are your thoughts?

 

[sfin52]

I believe it to be a spotted morey eel

http://www.oceanwideimages.com/species.asp?s=Spotted+Moray+Eel

 

[JollyReefer]

Thanks for your reply! Yes, it definitely could be. The one you linked to has a pattern very similar to the one we found. I just stumbled upon some interesting information regarding this species. Both of these pages identify it as a whitemouth eel, which seems very odd to me considering the very different pattern from traditional whitemouth eels. My guess is different species altogether. Unknown species.

http://www.seasky.org/sea-gallery/sea-gallery-04-15.html
http://www.hawaiisfishes.com/fishes/neatfish/mystery_eel.htm

The main reason I wouldn't think it's a spotted moray is that all the pictures of spotted morays show spots in the eels' mouths. The one we found has a white mouth. See our youtube video at 6:40 if you're interested:

 

[sfin52]

Yes but the pic to the right on the same page does not. Might be a individual characteristic.

 

[sfin52]

http://www.fishbase.org/Country/CountryChecklist.php?resultPage=9&c_code=258&vhabitat=all2 This may help

 

[JollyReefer]

Thanks for the reference to fishbase. That was very interesting. Found another article in case anyone is interested. There seems to be mixed opinions in the scientific community about the identity of this eel. Here's another article posing the question. I'm unconvinced that this eels belongs to any of the standalone species named in the current taxonomy. I think it's a separate species that has yet to be named.

http://susanscott.net/OceanWatch2012/apr-09-12.html

 

[sfin52]

I agree with that a white mouth is good. I think you saw a very striking white mouth.

While looking for your eel online, many people call an eels very different names. They even have same names for different species. Very confusing.

 

[sfin52]

By the way I watched your video in it’s entirety. That was amazing. I know the colors were spectacular but didn’t show up in the video

 

[JollyReefer]

Thanks! The true colors definitely didn't show up in the video.

 

[sfin52]

I’ve had the same issues.