That's A Moray Monday: The Day Late, Endemic Hawaiian Edition

With the frequency of my posting a day late, I may need to change this series to That's a Moray Tuesday. But I'll fall back on a good excuse of having my hands full with field work and the sketchy access to internet hotspots in Kona. But enough excuses, it's time to celebrate Hawaii's amazing marine edemism with a moray you can find nowhere else but here. And maybe because it's not that common an eel, even here in Hawaii, the available images of live specimens in natural reef settings is limited.

Steindachner's Moray (also called the Brown-Speckled Eel)
Gymnothorax steindachneri

While endemic to Hawaii, the Steindachner's moray is only considered common in the Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument (also known as the Northwestern Hawaiian islands). It can be found in crevices and rocky holes along shallow, fringing reef systems. The species exhibits a disruptive coloration consisting of a mostly cream-colored body with irregular brown markings (almost starbursts) and stripes running the length of the body. This coloration does not generally extend to the tips of the fins or along fin margins which typically remain white. The species can attain lengths up to approximately one meter (3 feet).

As an interesting aside, the Steindachner's moray (and many other fish species), owe their rather interesting names to Franz Steindachner, a reknowned 19th century Austrian zoologist. Steindachner was a prolific taxonomist and ichthyologist. In fact, in 1868 he was invited by Harvard's famous zoologist, glacial expert, and creationist Louis Agassiz to accept a position at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. But back to our eel.

Despite being an endemic species and therefore considered highly vulnerable to exploitation, the online resource FishBase indicates that the Steindachner's moray is a commercially valuable species for the aquarium trade. Let's hope that since the primary species densities are found in the isolated outer Northwest Hawaiian Islands, their populations can remain stable for quite some time.