The largest moray by mass, and it hunts cooperatively with grouper.
The heaviest moray, reaching about 3 m and 30 kg, brown with fine dark spotting that becomes a leopard pattern towards the tail and a distinctive large black blotch around the gill opening. The head is thick and the jaws carry long recurved teeth. Small individuals are easily confused with several other spotted morays; the gill blotch is the reliable mark.
Notable for cooperative hunting. Roving coral grouper have been recorded signalling to a moray with a headstand and a shimmy, after which the two hunt together — the grouper covering open water and the moray the crevices, so that prey has nowhere to go. Each eats what it catches; neither shares. It is one of very few documented cases of a fish recruiting another species to hunt. Recorded from the shallows to about 50 m, on muck sites usually in wreckage and rock. Large individuals in ciguatera-prone areas carry the toxin, which is a reason not to eat one.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
