Gymnothorax elegans Bliss 1883

Smith, David G., Bogorodsky, Sergey V., Mal, Ahmad O. & Alpermann, Tilman J., 2019, Review of the moray eels (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) of the Red Sea, with description of a new species, Zootaxa 4704 (1), pp. 1-87 : 25

Gymnothorax elegans Bliss 1883 —Elegant Moray

( Figure 13 )

Muraena flavimarginata Kaup 1856: 67 ( Réunion I.). Syntypes, MNHN A-8811 (1, dry), A-8812 (1, dry). Preoccupied by Muraena flavimarginata Rüppell 1830 .

Gymnothorax elegans Bliss 1883: 60 ( Mauritius) . Holotype (unique), MCZ 5954.— Goren & Dor 1994: 7; Randall & Golani 1995: 857; Golani & Bogorodsky 2010: 10; Golani & Fricke 2018: 21.

Lycodontis elegans: Ajiad & El-Absy 1986: 297 .

Red Sea material. Jordan: Marine Science Station Aqaba 150–151 (2, 440–510).

Comparative material. Mauritius: MCZ 5954 (1, 622, holotype) ; MCZ 5946 (1, 550, holotype of Gymnothorax albomaculatus Bliss ) . Maldives: BPBM 34735 (1, 495). Hawaii : USNM 50617 (1, 540, holotype of Gymnothorax goldsboroughi Jordan & Evermann) .

Description. In TL: preanal length 2.1–2.4, predorsal length 11–14, head length 7.5–9.9, body depth at anus 18–30. In head length: snout length 4.5–6.9, eye diameter 9.0–12.0, upper-jaw length 2.2–2.8. Pores: LL 2, SO 3, IO 4, POM 6. Vertebrae: predorsal 2–5, preanal 52–57, total 141–146.

Body moderately elongate; anus before midlength; dorsal-fin origin before gill opening. Jaws moderate, of equal length or lower jaw slightly protruding. Eye moderate, over middle of upper jaw. Anterior nostril tubular, reaching edge of lip when depressed; posterior nostril in a low tube, over or just in front of anterior edge of eye.

Teeth in jaws uniserial, triangular, finely serrate; a single median intermaxillary tooth. Vomerine teeth small, in a single row.

Color: a complex pattern of pale spots on a dark brown background, continued onto head and dorsal fin. Anteriorly, spots smaller and more closely set, with the pale background often reduced to a narrow reticulation; in the middle of body spots as large as or slightly larger than eye; posteriorly, spots larger and farther apart, becoming aligned dorsoventrally, eventually forming irregular pale bars. Anal fin dark at base with a white edge, dorsal fin with a narrow white edge posteriorly. A dark spot around gill opening. Sometimes a dark stripe midventrally on throat and anterior trunk.

Maximum size at least 800 mm.

Distribution and habitat. Across the Indo-Pacific from the western Indian Ocean and Red Sea to Hawaiian Islands and French Polynesia, at about 90–400 m depth. Red Sea records from the Gulf of Aqaba only, where it was first reported on the basis of two specimens collected by hook and line at a depth of 180 m ( Ajiad & El-Absy 1986).

Remarks. This species is known in the Red Sea from the two specimens cited above and another specimen photographed from a submarine at a depth of 350–400 m, also in the Gulf of Aqaba ( Randall & Golani, 1995: 857). We did not examine the specimens and do not know the number of vertebrae. Böhlke & Randall (2000: 233) gave a range of 138–150 total vertebrae for this species, which seems excessive for one species, but they did not break down the counts geographically. The counts given above (141–146) are of specimens from Mauritius and Hawaii, and there seems little difference between those two widely separated localities. This species is not commonly collected, undoubtedly due to its deep-water habitat and probably cryptic habits. Nevertheless, we were able to include the species in the present phylogeny, although we did not obtain specimens and tissue samples from the Red Sea during the past surveys carried out in the frame of the project on biodiversity of the Red Sea. The two specimens, for which COI sequence data are included here, come from the southwestern Indian Ocean ( South Africa) and the South Pacific (Society Islands). Despite this large geographic distance, the sequences showed no strong divergence, hinting at a rather low level of differentiation across the distribution range.

Figures

FIGURE 13. Gymnothorax elegans, BPBM 34735, 495 mm TL, fresh specimen, Maldives. Photo by J.E. Randall.