Anguillidae

Giant mottled eel

Anguilla marmorata

A two meter mottled body descending into deep sea gullies

• Black
• Brown
• Gray
• Cross-climate
• Temperate
• Tropical
• Estuary
• Globally widespread
• Freshwater fish
• Anguilliform
• Large
• Tropical fish

Crowned as the colossal giant among all true freshwater eels, the giant mottled eel is a massive, muscular catadromous teleost inhabiting the pristine river drainages of the tropical Indo-Pacific. Its robust serpentine body is enveloped in a thick coat of defensive mucus and adorned with an intricate, variegated camouflage of olive-green, dark brown, and golden-amber marbling superimposed on a pale yellowish ground color. The head is broad with thick fleshy lips and a forward-positioned dorsal fin that originates well in advance of the anal fin, separating it from shorter-finned congeners. Widely distributed from East Africa and Madagascar through Southeast Asia, southern China, and northern Australia to French Polynesia, it spends decades in deep river gorges, mountain rapids, and lowland lagoons. Nocturnal apex carnivores hunt voraciously for freshwater river crabs, prawns, frogs, and teleost fishes. Prior to oceanic migration, adults transform into massive silver eels that journey thousands of miles into deep oceanic trenches to reproduce and die. Maximum recorded total length reaches two hundred centimetres and masses over twenty kilograms.

Sources: Australian Museum — Giant Mottled Eel, Anguilla marmorata