The largest eastern Pacific moray, uniformly dark, in rock crevices and out on the open bottom at night.
To about 150 cm, and the largest common moray on eastern Pacific rock. Heavy build with a heavy blunt snout, brown to brownish-green and usually plain, sometimes with a few white or yellow flecks confined to the rear half. Juveniles are very dark to blackish with a whitish edge to the dorsal fin. The dorsal ridge is tall and starts well ahead of the gill opening.
The fine-spotted moray is the pair: densely and finely white-speckled including the head, where this fish is plain.
One to about thirty-six metres on rock, with juveniles also in mangroves. It lies in holes by day and forages in the open at night, and it detects wounded or distressed prey from over twenty metres away, which is worth knowing if anyone in the group is carrying a speared fish.
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.
