Eels that live in a hole with the head out, opening and closing the mouth to pump water over the gills. That is breathing, not threat, and it is the single thing about morays most often read backwards.
They have a second set of jaws in the throat that comes forward to pull prey back, because a moray cannot create suction the way most fish do. It is the reason a moray bite is hard to release and why the wound is a tear rather than a puncture.
Most are night hunters and are found by day only as a head in a hole. A few are out on open ground in daylight, and several hunt cooperatively with groupers, following a grouper's signal to a crevice the grouper cannot enter.
The whole hazard is a hand where the eel cannot see it. Morays have poor eyesight and hunt by smell, they do not attack divers, and almost every recorded bite followed a hand going into a hole or a fish being fed.
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 26 carry a record at each destination. A species usually carries several, so these do not add up to 26.
All 1316 species in one index, with filters for destination, rarity and hazard.
