A new species of moray eel The slender, brown moray eel has been discovered thriving in dark, muddy river mouths, unlike most of its marine moray relatives.
It is widely distributed in the central Indo-Pacific and has been found in southern Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, southern Java and Fiji. This new brunette (Uropterygius hades) named after Hadesthe god of the underworld, due to its unique habitat, burrowing behavior, high sensitivity to light, and, most notably, its deep, dark coloration.
Scientists from National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan, University of the Western Philippines and Dr. Yusuke Hibino, Kitakyushu Natural History Museum, Japan, describe this new species in an article published in the journal ZooKeys. They named him Hades, the god of the underworld, to emphasize your imposing appearance and its habitat in dark and murky environments.
There is approximately 230 species of moray eels throughout the world, and the majority inhabit marine environments. It has been confirmed that only one species spends most of its life in fresh water. Some marine species, such as the slender giant moray eel (Strophidon sathete), can tolerate and occasionally enter low salinity environments, such as river mouths. However, moray eels specifically adapted to estuarine habitats They are extremely rare.
The discovery of the brunette of Hades was actually accidentalwhen the three researchers from the National Sun Yat-sen University investigated the underground river cave of Puerto Princesa (Philippines), with the aim of studying aquatic fauna and targeting a species of cave eel, the eye-eyed snake. brown bean (Uropterygius cyamommatus).
This brunette, with a very small eye size, is considered an ideal example to study the evolutionary processes that allow these animals to adapt to cave environments. However, the researchers did not find any bean-eyed moray snakes in the cave; Instead, they collected a slim brunette with a striking, uniformly deep dark color.
When kept in an aquatic tank, the moray Hades snake exhibits tail-first burrowing behavior, which rarely seen in the brunettes. Additionally, it is very sensitive to light and constantly tries to hide when exposed to it.
Its small eyes (thought to be an adaptation to low-light environments) and reduced number of sensory pores on the head (thought to help avoid obstruction by substrate) suggest that this species could be an excellent excavatoras it relies primarily on chemoreception rather than vision to detect prey or avoid predators.
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