Gymnothorax saxicola
Honeycomb Moray
Collection Details
Specimens
Photos
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Anguilliformes (True Eels)
Muraenidae (Morays)
Gymnothorax
Gymnothorax saxicola (Honeycomb Moray)
Description
This species account was compiled from
Composite (multiple sources) (McEachran, J.D. and J.D. Fechhelm. Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico. University of Texas Press, Austin.)
and processed using AI-assisted text extraction.
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Characters
Moderately elongate and laterally compressed posteriorly; snout short, blunt; jaws short; anterior nostril tubular, posterior nostril rimmed pore above anterior one-half of eye; eye large, at midlength of jaws; teeth large, triangular, serrate; upper jaw with 8-12 teeth, lower jaw with 9-16 teeth; intermaxillary teeth consist of single tooth at tip of snout and four pairs of increasingly larger teeth; vomerine teeth small, conical, uniserial; gill openings small, rounded to elliptical, slightly below mid-depth of body; head pores: three infraorbital, three supraorbital, six mandibular, and two branchial; snout 16%-22%, eye 7.1%-15%, upper jaw 38%-51% of head length; head length 13%-16%, predorsal length 10%-16%, preanal length 41%-50%, depth at gill openings 4.6%-9%, depth at anus 4.1%-7.2% of TL; total vertebrae 134-147, predorsal vertebrae 4-7, preanal vertebrae 47-59
Brown to yellowish brown with pale to yellowish irregular spots forming honeycomb pattern on back and sides; large specimens occasionally have series of round spots along midbody depth; dorsal fin margin with pattern of saddle-shaped black areas outlined by undulating bright white stripe along middle and edge of fin; anal fin dark except for posterior end that is white with several saddle-shaped black areas
Distribution
Western North Atlantic from North Carolina to Florida and along the northeastern Gulf of Mexico to Mobile Bay
Habitat Associations
Near shore to 86 m, occasionally 128-213 m
Biology
Maximum known size is 620 mm TL
Males mature between 406 and 555 mm TL, females mature between 295 and 620 mm TL
Abundant in seagrass beds and banks; rarely in bays and not occurring on coral reefs.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2011-08-18. Resilience: Medium (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Phylogeny and Morphologically Similar Fishes
Distinguished from other species of the family by the combination of characters
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: minor commercial.
References
Hoese and Moore 1977
C. R. Robins et al. 1986
E. Bohlke et al. 1989
Boschung 1992
Robins, C.R. and G.C. Ray (1986) A field guide to Atlantic coast fishes of North America. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, U.S.A. 354 p.
Charter, S.R. and H.G. Moser (1996) Muraenidae: morays. p. 88-91. In H.G. Moser (ed.) The early stages of fishes in the California Current region. California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) Atlas No. 33. 1505 p.
Comments On Gymnothorax saxicola