Spotted garden-eel

The spotted garden eel is a shy, thin eel that spends almost its entire life anchored in a burrow in the sand. It grows up to 40 cm long, though most of that length usually stays hidden underground.

Also known as: heteroconger hassi, black spotted garden eel, garden eel, spotted garden eel

This eel often drops out of sight into its burrow before you get a full look at it, so check the fixed mark fast: the larger black spot at the gill opening, near the head end that stays above the sand.

This eel has a long, thin, tube-shaped body and a head about the same width as the body. Its mouth and eyes are both large and sit close together near the tip of the head. The body is white, covered with many small black spots, plus a few larger black patches: one near the gill opening, one around the middle of the body, and one around the vent. Young garden eels look different, with a very thin, plain dark body.

Spotted garden eels live in the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific, on sandy sea floors exposed to steady currents. They live in colonies, each eel in its own burrow, at depths from about 5 to 50 m.

This eel digs a burrow in the sand and rarely leaves it. It sticks about a third of its body out of the burrow, facing into the current to catch drifting plankton as it passes. When approached, it slips quickly back down out of sight. During the breeding season, eels may shift their burrows closer to a partner's until the two can touch.

harmless

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  Conger eels

  conger

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  European Conger

  Conger conger

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  Large-eye Conger

  Ariosoma marginatum