The eels that are not morays: garden eels, snake eels, conger eels and the ribbon eel. Most of the group lives in sand rather than in rock, which is what separates it from the morays in practice.
Garden eels are a colony on open sand, each animal standing out of its own burrow into the current to take plankton, and withdrawing in a wave as a diver crosses the colony. They cannot be approached upright. The way to photograph one is to get on the bottom well back and move forward over several minutes.
Snake eels bury with only the head showing and hunt at night. Several are marked like sea snakes, which is thought to be mimicry, and one useful check is the tail: a snake eel's is hard and pointed for burrowing, and it goes into the sand backwards.
The ribbon eel changes both sex and colour with age. Juveniles are black with a yellow fin, adult males are blue and yellow, and the largest are yellow females. One hole can hold the same animal through more than one of those.
Every one has a page. They are shown as a list rather than as pictures because nothing has been photographed or logged for them yet, and a species with nothing behind it should not sit in front of one that has.
How many of the 18 carry a record at each destination. A species usually carries several, so these do not add up to 18.
All 1316 species in one index, with filters for destination, rarity and hazard.
