Dark brown speckled with pale spots and a yellow-green margin to the fins, common on Indian Ocean reef.
To at least 124 cm, and possibly to 240 — the two standard sources differ by nearly a factor of two and the larger figure should be treated as unverified. Heavy-bodied, yellowish and densely finely mottled with dark brown, with a purplish-grey front to the head, an orange eye, and a prominent black blotch covering the gill opening. The rear margins of the dorsal and anal fins are yellow-green. Juveniles are sometimes bright yellow with brown blotches.
The undulated moray is the pair and the black gill blotch and yellow-green fin margins are present here and absent there.
Nought to a hundred and fifty metres, usually above fifty, on coral and rocky reef, protected shorelines, seaward reefs and drop-offs. Solitary and curious, usually seen with the head out of the hole, and it homes in on distressed prey: it most often appears on the reef after a fish has been speared. That combination of curiosity and attraction to speared fish makes it the large moray most likely to come to a diver.
Ciguatera is reported. The 2017 review that covers it found the liver four to fifteen times more toxic than the flesh and warns that flesh testing clear does not clear the viscera.
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.
