Gymnothorax favagineus Bloch & Schneider 1801

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 : 26-27

Gymnothorax favagineus Bloch & Schneider 1801 —Honeycomb Moray

( Figure 14 )

Gymnothorax favagineus Bloch & Schneider 1801: 525 , pl. 105 ( Tranquebar, India). Holotype (unique), ZMB 7782 (stuffed).— Randall 1994: 260; Randall & Golani 1995: 858; Golani & Bogorodsky 2010: 10; Golani & Fricke 2018: 21.

Red Sea material. None.

Comparative material. Taiwan: USNM 312734 (1, 303) ; USNM 312736 (2, 182–278) . Australia: USNM 176690 (2, ca 600–614) ; USNM 312733 (1, 304) ; USNM 312735 (1, 290).

Description. In TL: preanal length 2.0–2.2, predorsal length 9.4–11, head length 7.6–8.8, body depth at anus 19–24. In head length: snout length 5.1–6.7, eye diameter 9.4–11, upper-jaw length 2.5–3.0. Pores: LL 2, SO 3, IO 4, POM 6. Vertebrae: predorsal 5–6, preanal 61–64, total 139–148.

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

Teeth smooth, conical to narrowly triangular; intermaxillary teeth in a single peripheral series of about 4 on each side, 2 or 3 median teeth. Maxillary teeth biserial, 2–3 larger inner teeth and about 1 1–15 smaller outer teeth. Dentary with 2 or 3 large teeth anteriorly followed by about 11–14 smaller teeth, the larger teeth sometimes distinctly medial to smaller teeth. Vomerine teeth uniserial in young, biserial in adults.

Color: body and head white covered with numerous, polygonal, black spots separated by narrow interspaces often forming a honeycomb-like pattern. Spots larger and more widely separated in young.

Maximum size at least 2 m.

Distribution and habitat. Widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific from the southern Red Sea south to South Africa, east to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Occurs on coral and rocky reefs from depths of 1–50 m; feeds on fishes and octopuses.

Remarks. The record from the Red Sea is based on a photograph taken at Hanish Island off Yemen ( Randall 1994). The three specimens examined from Taiwan have fewer vertebrae (139–141) than the four specimens from Australia (146–148). This species has been confused with other dark-spotted species such as Gymnothorax isingteena (Richardson) and G. melanospilus (Bleeker) . The species was not collected during the present study, and no tissue samples or COI sequence data for G. favagineus specimens from the Red Sea are available at present. The one sequence of Gymnothorax favagineus included in the phylogenetic analysis ( Fig. 48 ) and other near identical sequences from the southwestern Indian Ocean that are deposited in BOLD (not included in the present analysis) do not differ markedly from sequences from specimens collected in distant parts of the distribution area of the species (e.g. Taiwan, Indonesia and Western Australia) indicating low levels of intra-specific genetic differentiation (not shown in the present phylogeny, Fig. 48 ). The closest phylogenetic relationship, although only weakly supported by bootstrapped analyses, is with Gymnothorax formosus Bleeker (represented by a specimen from the Society Islands in the present analysis, see Fig. 48 ).

Figures

FIGURE 14. Gymnothorax favagineus, Seven Brothers, Djibouti. Photo by J.E. Randall.

FIGURE 48. Unrooted maximum likelihood phylogeny of Indo-Pacific moray eels (Muraenidae) based on partial mitochondrial COI. Branch support values were obtained by 100 bootstrapped replicates; only bootstrap values above 50 percent are shown. The scale bar represents average number of nucleotide substitutions. (A) = specimen sequenced in this study; (B) = sequence retrieved from BOLD; (C) sequence retrieved from CRIOBE; (G) = sequence retrieved from GenBank; (R) = sequence retrieved from Reece et al. (2010); (ID) = species ID re-assigned herein; (ID-H) = specimen re-assigned as of Huang et al. (2019); (SAU) = collected in Saudi Arabia; (ISR) = collected in Israel.