Gymnothorax phasmatodes ( Smith 1962 )

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 : 46-47

Gymnothorax phasmatodes ( Smith 1962)

—Phantom Moray

( Figure 30 )

Lycodontis phasmatodes Smith 1962: 436 , pl. 53 (figs B, C & I)

(Inhaca I., Mozambique). Holotype, SAIAB 108 .

Red Sea material. None.

Comparative material. Mozambique: SAIAB 108 (holotype, 447) . Mauritius: USNM 342265 (1, 245) . Indonesia: USNM 210916 (2, 255–350) . Philippines: USNM 378712 (1, 317) . Fiji: USNM 245633 (1, 335) .

Description. In TL: preanal length 1.9–2.0, predorsal length 13–14, head length 10–11, body depth at anus 31–37. In head length: snout length 5.1–6.7, eye diameter 7.6–12, upper-jaw length 2.9–3.6. Pores: LL 2, SO 3, IO 4, POM 6. Vertebrae: predorsal 5–6, preanal 72–80, total 164–167.

Body elongate; anus at or slightly behind 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; posterior nostril elliptical, without a noticeably raised rim, above anterior margin of eye.

Teeth uniserial, smooth, conical to slightly triangular. Intermaxillary teeth in a single peripheral series, 3–6 on each side; 3 median teeth, slender and depressible. Maxillary teeth uniserial, about 5–10. Dentary with 9–14 teeth, largest ones anteriorly. Vomerine teeth small, in a single short series, 2–9.

Color: head and body light tan or gray, head slightly darker, head pores in pale spots. Fins with a conspicuous light blue edge in life, becoming white in preservative. Iris white; anterior nostril pale.

Maximum size about 500 mm.

Distribution and habitat. From the east coast of Africa, the Red Sea, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean to the Philippines, Indonesia, and at least as far east as Fiji; the closest record to the Red Sea is from the Arabian Gulf, Jana Island (Randall 1995). In shallow water on sand and rocky bottom, reported from depth less than 2 m from reef flat to depth of 34 m.

Remarks. The first record for the Red Sea is from a photograph taken at Jeddah, reproduced in Fig. 25 . There seems to be little geographical variation; two specimens from the western Indian Ocean have 164–166 vertebrae, two from the Philippines and Indonesia have 164–165, and one from Fiji has 167. No other differences are apparent. Unfortunately, this species could not be included in the present phylogeny ( Fig. 48 ) as no specimens were collected during field survey carried out in this study nor were any COI sequence data available.

Figures

FIGURE 25. Gymnothorax pharaonis n. sp., drawing of the head showing cephalic sensory system. Drawing by D.G. Smith.

FIGURE 30. Gymnothorax phasmatodes, Obhur, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Photo by K. Metcalfe.

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.