Divers Den golden tail moray

Draven · Oct 15, 2024

I've been looking for an eel to add to my tank and the goldentail moray ( gymnothorax milaris ) is a perfect fit. Now I've seen these eels on divers den a few times and they claim to be g. Milaris but they don't appear to be.
What are they?

littlefoxx · Oct 15, 2024

This is the eel you were looking at correct? Not sure what this one is honestly. @Slocke @HAAAAAAAA ??

Slocke · Oct 15, 2024

@ISpeakForTheSeas I’m sure you’d love to ID this brownish moray eel. Call me if it’s an Opichthidae. Morays are too hard

HAAAAAAAA · Oct 16, 2024

Slocke said:
@ISpeakForTheSeas I’m sure you’d love to ID this brownish moray eel. Call me if it’s an Opichthidae. Morays are too hard

I've looked at the list of gymnothorax species from fishbase and unless ive missed something it doesn't seem to be a gymnothorax genus, it could be a pebble tooth

HAAAAAAAA · Oct 16, 2024

I am leaning towards echidna peli but I am not exactly sure but seems to be really similar

Draven said:
I've been looking for an eel to add to my tank and the goldentail moray ( gymnothorax milaris ) is a perfect fit. Now I've seen these eels on divers den a few times and they claim to be g. Milaris but they don't appear to be.
What are they?

Screenshot_2024-10-16-11-16-07-304_com.android.chrome.jpg

Draven · Oct 16, 2024

HAAAAAAAA said:
I am leaning towards echidna peli but I am not exactly sure but seems to be really similar

That definitely looks like it but after looking at the fish base there are just too many eels that look like this. Definitely not G. Milaris

ISpeakForTheSeas · Oct 16, 2024

Slocke said:
@ISpeakForTheSeas I’m sure you’d love to ID this brownish moray eel. Call me if it’s an Opichthidae. Morays are too hard

Haha, I'll take a closer look when I've got time (hopefully within the next few days - sorry; eel ID is tough, and I'm set to be super busy for the next several weeks, so I'm pretty much restricted to relatively easy ID's for the moment), but on first glance it does seem to be a Muraenidae species of some kind.

ISpeakForTheSeas · Oct 17, 2024

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
Haha, I'll take a closer look when I've got time (hopefully within the next few days - sorry; eel ID is tough, and I'm set to be super busy for the next several weeks, so I'm pretty much restricted to relatively easy ID's for the moment), but on first glance it does seem to be a Muraenidae species of some kind.

Surprisingly came into time today to take a closer look - OP, do any of the below seem like a good match?

-Gymnothorax richardsonii
-Gymnothorax pseudokidako
-Gymnothorax buroensis
For comparison:
-Richardsonii (this would be my guess if the eel is ~1' or less in length):

Picture Summary