Uropterygius concolor Rüppell 1838

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 : 63-66

Uropterygius concolor Rüppell 1838 —Unicolor Snakemoray

( Figure 42 )

Uropterygius concolor Rüppell 1838: 83 , pl. 20 (fig. 4) (Massawa, Eritrea, Red Sea). Lectotype, SMF 746, designated by Böhlke 1982: 40. — Goren & Dor 1994: 7; Randall & Golani 1995: 871; Golani & Bogorodsky 2010: 11; Golani & Fricke 2018: 23.

Gymnomuraena concolor: Klunzinger 1871: 620 .

Red Sea material. Egypt: USNM 410630 (1, 89), Sharm el Sheikh, Sharm el Moya. Saudi Arabia: KAUMM 411 [ KAU 12-1084] (1, 71), Farasan Archipelago; KAUMM 412 [ KAU 12-1086] (1, 189), Al Lith; KAUMM 413 [ KAU 12-1089] (1, 108), Al Lith; SMF 35824 [ KAU 12-309] (1, 176), Farasan Archipelago; SMF 35825 [ KAU 13- 288] (1, 118), Al Wajh; SMF 35826 [ KAU 13-346] (1, 178), Al Wajh (marbled); SMF 33615 (1, 153), Al Lith (marbled). Eritrea: HUJ 4939 (1, 191), Dahlak Archipelago; HUJ 15127 (1, 146), Dahlak Archipelago ; SMF 746 (1, 218, lectotype of Uropterygius concolor ), Massawa ; SMF 7422 (1, 188, paralectotype of Uropterygius concolor ), Massawa ; USNM 235348 (5, 151–195), Melita Bay ; USNM 312832 (4, 131–187), Dahlak Archipelago , Delemmi ; USNM 312833 (1, 144), Dahlak Archipelago , Harat Island ; USNM 397544 (1, 145), Massawa .

Description. In TL: preanal length 2.1–2.5, head length 8.1–10, body depth at anus 20–34. In head length: snout length 5.9–9.3, eye diameter 9.1–13, upper-jaw length 2.4–3.6. Pores: LL 1, SO 3, IO 4, POM 6. Vertebrae: predorsal 107–115, pre-anus 47–50, pre-anal fin 109–118, total 117–124.

Body moderate; anus before midlength; gill opening at mid-side. Snout moderate, jaws about equal length. Eye moderate, over middle of upper jaw. Anterior nostril tubular; posterior nostril above anterior margin of eye.

Teeth biserial, conical, smooth, those of intermaxillary and maxillary continuous, the outer series small and numerous, the inner series longer and fewer; the inner maxillary row extends almost to posterior end of jaw. Two median intermaxillary teeth. Dentary teeth biserial, those of inner row larger than those of outer; the inner row extending a half to two-thirds the length of outer row. Vomerine teeth uniserial.

Color: medium brown, usually uniform, occasionally with irregular, indistinct pale markings. Head pores white. Conspicuous rows of small, white neuromasts on head and along lateral line. In life branchial cavity in a diffuse dark magenta blotch.

Maximum size about 200–250 mm.

Distribution and habitat. Occurrence and distribution outside the Red Sea is uncertain. The name has been widely applied to small, brown Uropterygius in the Indo-Pacific, but it is not certain whether all of these represent the same species. Further studies are needed. Specimens were collected from fringing reefs of seaward reef from depths of 3– 15 m.

Remarks. There are no obvious differences between the plain-colored and patterned specimens. They are identical in dentition, pore pattern, position of the gill opening, and number of vertebrae, and we presume that they are simply color phases of the same species. The phylogeny ( Fig. 48 ) includes, next to Red Sea specimens collected in this study, specimens originally identified as Uropterygius concolor (here Uropterygius cf. concolor ) from the southwestern Indian Ocean ( South Africa), the southeastern Indian Ocean (Western Australia) and the South Pacific (Society Islands), which all form well divergent clades and presumably represent a number of different species. Closest of these clades to the Red Sea Uropterygius concolor (with type locality in Massawa, Eritrea) is Uropterygius cf. concolor from the Southwest Indian Ocean ( South Africa), with which it is placed in a joint clade with moderately high bootstrap support.

Figures

FIGURE 42. Uropterygius concolor. A: SMF 35825 [KAU13-288], 118 mm TL, alive, Al Wajh, Saudi Arabia; B: SMF 35826 [KAU13-346], 178 mm TL, alive, Al Wajh, Saudi Arabia. Photos by S.V. Bogorodsky.

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.