Scuticaria tigrina ( Lesson 1828 )

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 : 63

Scuticaria tigrina ( Lesson 1828) —Tiger Snakemoray

( Figure 41 )

Ichthyophis tigrinus Lesson 1828: 399 (Bora Bora, Society Is.). Lectotype, MNHN B-2454, designated by Böhlke & McCosker 1997: 174.

Red Sea material. Saudi Arabia: SMF 35823 [ KAU13-680 ] (1, 553), Jeddah, Obhur, steep slope with many corals and caves, 14–16 m, S.V. Bogorodsky, 01 July 2013 .

Comparative material. Chagos Archipelago: USNM 312867 (1, 451) . Samoa: USNM 52273 (1, 814) , Apia. Wallis I.: USNM 370488 (1, 527) . French Polynesia, Bora Bora: MNHN B.2454 (1, 605, lectotype). Huahine : USNM 312866 (1, 405) . Hawaii: USNM 52764 (1, 845).

Description. Data for the Red Sea specimen given in parentheses. In TL: preanal length 1.5–1.6 (1.5), head length 11–15 (13), body depth at anus 26–45 (36). In head length: snout length 5.2–7.9 (6.0), eye diameter 12–18 (15), upper-jaw length 2.8–3.4 (3.1). Pores: LL 1, SO 3, IO 4, POM 6. Vertebrae: predorsal 152–166 (152), pre-anus 100–104 (100), pre-anal fin 156–167 (156), total 161–174 (161).

Body moderate, robust, nearly cylindrical; anus well behind midlength, at about two-thirds TL. Snout moderate, jaws about equal length. Eye moderate, over middle of upper jaw. Anterior nostril tubular; posterior nostril a low tube, above anterior margin of eye.

Teeth biserial, conical, smooth. Intermaxillary teeth in five rows across, about 4–9 peripheral, 4–5 intermediate, 2–4 median. Maxilla with an outer series of 6–15 small teeth and an inner series of 6–9 larger, depressible teeth; the inner series extends only about half as far back as the outer series. Dentary with 6–8 large inner teeth and 13–22 smaller outer teeth. Vomerine teeth uniserial.

Color: head posterior to corner of mouth and body pale yellowish to light brown, with well-separated, irregularly round, dark brown spots of variable size. Head anterior to corner of mouth with many small dark brown spots.

Maximum size about 1.4 m.

Distribution and habitat. Widely distributed across the Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea and South Africa to the Hawaiian Islands and Society Islands, also reported from islands off Mexico and Central America, but not common anywhere. May be seen night or day on coral reefs at depths of 7–25 m, in the Red Sea observed under water from the Gulf of Aqaba (Dahab), Marsa Alam, and Saudi Arabia (vicinity of Jeddah and at Al Lith).

Remarks. This is the first record of the species from the Red Sea, based on the collected specimen and underwater photographs. The examined specimen was collected at 14–16 m on a steep reef slope with numerous caves. It superficially resembles Uropterygius polyspilus but is easily distinguished by the more posterior anus. The Red Sea specimen has slightly fewer predorsal (152 vs. 157–166), preanal-fin (156 vs. 159–167) and total (161 vs. 165–174) vertebrae than those from elsewhere. The phylogenetic tree ( Fig. 48 ) shows a slight difference between the Red Sea specimen and two from Hawaii and Taiwan, reinforcing the difference in vertebral counts. Formerly, the species was placed in the genus Uropterygius , but it was reclassified in the genus Scuticaria by Böhlke & McCosker (1997) in their review of the genus. The present phylogeny, although deeper phylogenetic splits in general did not receive high bootstrap support, is in accordance with the multi-gene phylogeny in Reece et al. (2010) that places Scuticaria within Uropterygius with high support, questioning the validity of the generic assignment in a phylogenetic context.

Figures

FIGURE 41. Scuticaria tigrina. A: alive, Dahab, Egypt; B: SMF 35823 [KAU13-680], 553 mm TL, fresh specimen, Obhur, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Photo by A. Ryanskiy (A), S.V. Bogorodsky (B).

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.