Our today's animal lives at a shallow depth in burrows, waiting for the prey. It is greenish, predatory and has a good set of teeth - green moray.
Green moray
The body is long, compressed from the sides, devoid of scales and covered with a layer of yellowish mucus, which provides the animal with safe and easy sliding and penetration into small caves and other shelters, and also protects against mechanical damage and parasites. Skin coloration from dark brown to gray-brown. The maximum recorded body length is 250 cm, and the mass is 29 kg.
Green morays live at depths of up to 50 meters in the intertidal zone, coral reefs, mangrove forests, near rocks and ports. They lead a solitary lifestyle, are active mainly at night. Adult morays feed on small fish, crustaceans and cephalopods, while the larvae feed on diatoms, small crustaceans and zooplankton.
The green moray is a predator. During the day, it sits in some shelter among the corals or in the rocks. Only the head sticks out, which moves from side to side, and small eyes carefully look around, looking at the prey swimming by. Then moray with a quick throw jumps out of the ambush and grabs it.
It differs from most other fish in the presence of additional "pharyngeal" teeth, which are "hidden" deep in the pharynx. This feature is associated with lifestyle. Burrows and shelters in which morays settle are quite narrow. For this reason, it is difficult for them to open their jaws wide so that the prey, along with the stream of water, is sucked into the mouth. That is, they cannot swallow like other fish do. Therefore, in the process of evolution, they have formed "pharyngeal" teeth, which are located on the second pair of jaws and are located far in the pharynx. These jaws can be extended with the help of special muscles.
Distribution
They can be found in the temperate and warm waters of the western Atlantic. The northern border of the range is located off the coast of the American state of New Jersey, and the southern border is near Brazil. They inhabit Bermuda and the northern Gulf of Mexico. There is one report of the discovery of morays even in the waters off Nova Scotia (Canada) north of New Jersey. A small area of the range also exists in the eastern part of the Atlantic.
Conservation
Green morays are listed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN. The number of morays is large enough and they do not have critical threats to the species.
That's it for today. See you all next time.
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