An eastern Pacific moray patterned in pale blotches with dark centres, in holes in the rock.
To about a metre, though the two standard sources give 97 and 120 cm. Both nostrils are distinctly tubular with the rear one over the front edge of the eye, which is what separates Muraena from Gymnothorax on this rock. Brown with a dense covering of irregular cream spots, a large black ocellus over the gill opening, and a black spot at the rear corner of the mouth with a white area in front of it on the lower jaw. Juveniles show five or six rows of hourglass-shaped spots, which is where the name comes from.
The jewel moray is the pair to separate it from and the gill opening does it: a large conspicuous ocellus here, an inconspicuous black area there.
Nought to twenty-five metres, lying up in holes on boulder ground and walls.
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.
