Many marine eel species call Hawaii’s waters home

Singapore reader Ben Nottle sent me a 41-second eel video, goo.gl/fOJ6E, so entertaining I watched it half a dozen times. Ben’s circumstances while filming were not ideal for cheering — he’s scuba diving — yet you can hear his whoops of joy.

After his extraordinary encounter with this fish in Indonesia, Ben narrowed its species possibilities to the Hawaiian mustache conger (Conger marginatus) or the longfin African conger (Conger cinereus.) He asked whether I had any insight as to which of these his eel might be.

I did. The star of Ben’s Indonesia film had to be an African conger eel because the Hawaiian conger eel, puhi uha, is endemic to Hawaii.

Just about every elongated fish in the world is called an eel, but real eels have standards. Textbooks list true eel traits but then cite so many exceptions among the 750 species in the world that knowing the criteria doesn’t help much. The picture becomes clearer in looking at the world’s four main eel families.

Since Latin names are, well, in Latin, I think of the first one as the hapa eel family. These eels are half-freshwater, half-marine, living in lakes and rivers but spawning in the ocean. After spending six to 12 years in their freshwater environments, eels in this family turn from green to silver and head to sea, swimming up to 3,500 miles to spawn. The eels die after reproducing, leaving their tiny offspring to drift with the current until they find a lake or river to call home.

Freshwater eels don’t live in Hawaii, but the other three major eel families are well represented on our reefs: moray, snake and conger eels.

In a testimony to the hardiness and longevity of moray larvae, Hawaii’s waters host 42 species of moray eels, about one-fourth of the inshore morays in the world. Researchers guess that moray eels flourished in Hawaii due to the lack of competition from predators.

Snake eels are true eels, but these tricksters dress like snakes and swim around Hawaii’s reefs freaking out visitors. About once a month, someone sends me a picture of a sea snake they saw here. With the exception of one, probably a yellow-bellied sea snake, all photos have been one of the 17 snake eels that live in Hawaii waters.

Conger eels are less abundant. Of the 13 species found in Hawaii, only two are common, both endemic: the Hawaiian mustache conger and the Hawaiian garden eels.

A couple of famous eel wannabes are the so-called electric eels and wolf eels.

The electric eel is a member of the knife fish family, freshwater fish native to South America. Growing to 6 feet long, electric eels can produce shocks up to 500 volts.

Another famous faker is the wolf eel, which belongs to its own family of wolf fish. Common along the Pacific coasts of North America and Japan, wolf eels can grow to 8 feet long. Unprovoked, wolf eels are docile and friendly to divers.

When I cross paths with one of Hawaii’s many eels, I stop, watch and wait. Never, though, have I seen one snatch and gulp down a damselfish, as Ben did when he gurgled out his hoots of happiness.

Thanks, Ben, for sharing your thrill.

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Reach Susan Scott at www.susanscott.net.