Mediterranean moray eel (Muraena helena Linnaeus, 1758) is a marine fish belonging to the Muraenidae family. In this video we see it on a rather bare corralligious seabed at a depth of about 40-42 meters. Moray eel Muraena helena Murena mediterranea www.intotheblue.it
As always when we dive to film the various marine species, even if we don’t want to, we are forced to document the conditions of our seabed and the health of our Mediterranean Sea. This poor moray eel is sharing its den with a lost anchor chain. In the video you can’t see the anchor, but you can see how the fish is in close contact with a steel chain about a couple of inches in size.
Moray eels are a nocturnal species and during the day you can often find them with their heads sticking out of their den to control their territory. As you can see in the video they are not aggressive towards the diver, so they tend to take refuge by burrowing rather than attacking the intruding diver.
On intotheblue.it and intotheblue.link we have documented several encounters with the Mediterranean Moray Eel, being a fairly common species and extremely adaptable and resilient to the impact that we humans cause to their ecosystem, however we remember that anchoring on rocky coralligenous seabeds of 40 meters and more is a stupid and counterproductive action, since 99 times out of 100 it is impossible to recover the anchor that will be lost together with several meters of chain and rope causing environmental damage.
Moray Eel (Muraena helena Linnaeus, 1758) is a marine bony fish belonging to the Muraenidae family.
Distribution and habitat
It is widespread in the Mediterranean Sea and in the eastern Atlantic (from the south of England to Senegal, including the coastal areas of the Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, and Cape Verde). It is common in the Mediterranean and in the Italian seas except in the northern Adriatic Sea.
It inhabits rocky or coral seabeds devoid of sediment and rich in ravines at depths between 5 and 50 meters. Juveniles are often found in very shallow waters.
Description
Like all eels, the moray eel has a serpentine body and dorsal, caudal and anal fins joined in a continuous median fin. The body is rather massive and relatively compressed at the sides along its entire length; the body section is oval and not rounded like, for example, in the eel. The eyes are quite small; the mouth is very wide and armed with long, pointed teeth facing backwards.
The rear nostril has a tube and is located in front of the eye. The gill opening is small, rounded, located just behind the head. The dorsal fin begins immediately behind the eyes; the anal fin has its origin slightly further back than half the body. In this species, the ventral fins (as in all eels) and the pectoral fins are absent. It also lacks a tongue. The skin is slimy and has no visible scales. The background color is dark brown or almost black, completely covered with yellowish spots of extremely variable shape, number and size.
The maximum size is 150 cm, the most common size is about 80 cm.
Biology
It is a nocturnal and territorial fish that spends the daylight hours hidden in its den.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muraena_helena
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_moray
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