Snowflake Morays Emerge from the Sea.....

[VR28man]

... and strike at crabs. Trust The Science!

Snowflake morays, Echidna nebulosa, exhibit similar feeding kinematics in terrestrial and aquatic treatments

Summary: Body elongation and pharyngeal transport facilitates prey capture and swallowing on land for the snowflake moray, Echidna nebulosa.

journals.biologists.com

Some species of durophagous moray eels (Muraenidae) have been documented emerging from the marine environment to capture intertidal crabs but how they consume prey out of water is unknown. Here, we trained snowflake morays, Echidna nebulosa, to undulate out of the aquatic environment to feed on land. On land, snowflake morays remove prey from the substrate by biting and swallow prey using pharyngeal jaw enabled transport. Although snowflake morays exhibit smaller jaw rotation angles on land when apprehending their prey, transport kinematics involving dorsoventral flexion of the head to protract the pharyngeal jaws and overall feeding times did not differ between terrestrial and aquatic treatments. We suggest that their elongate body plan, ability to rotate their heads in the dorsoventral and lateral directions, and extreme pharyngeal movements all contribute to the ability of durophagous morays to feed in the terrestrial environment.

Seriously, I think this is pretty cool. This makes sense - one place where snowflakes live (or travel to in order to eat - I've seen morays swimming in and around the seashore from deeper parts) are rocky seashores or reef crests (the "top" of some coral reefs which is often exposed a low tide).

Gratuitous videos of wild snowflakes:

(i can totally imagine this dude slithering near exposed rocks waiting to nab a crab. Also, look at the flow of this inshore zone - I doubt you could ever mimic this in an aquarium?)

Catching them in Hawaii (Oahu, he says - though off the top of my head I don't recognize where )




Other random videos:



Completely gratuitous: the dude from Hawaii catching mantis shrimp:

 

[KrisReef]

I saw a small (~10 inch) moray in a tide puddle. I startled it (actually, we startled each other) and it went across volcanic shoreline about 1/2 body length to another puddle where I sized it up for capture and decided that it's 1/4" fangs were not worth messing with.
At Catalina, Rigley Marine Lab? i have watch folk feed morays on the jetty at night they slither out of the rocks and reach up for food like Shamu at Sea World before Blackfish.

I'm more careful around rocky shoreline after seeing how the morays feed like a pack of sharks when they are hungry.