Muraenidae

Ribbon eel

Rhinomuraena quaesita

From juvenile black to female gold

• Blue
• Green
• Yellow
• Tropical
• Globally widespread
• Marine fish
• Anguilliform
• Large
• Tropical fish

Celebrated for its theatrical ribbon-like undulating swimming and vivid sequential color transformations, the ribbon eel is an extraordinary, highly specialized moray eel residing across tropical Indo-Pacific reefs. Its remarkably slender, laterally compressed body is topped by high, continuous fins, while the snout is crowned by four delicate, leaf-like flared sensory nasal tubes that flutter in marine currents like floral petals, accompanied by three barbels on the lower jaw. Demonstrating remarkable protandric sequential hermaphroditism, individuals change colors as they transition sexes throughout life: juveniles are glossy jet-black with a bright yellow dorsal fin; mature males transform into breathtaking, incandescent electric-blue with canary-yellow fins; terminal females transition into completely radiant, pure golden-yellow. Distributed from East Africa across Indonesia and the Great Barrier Reef to southern Japan and Polynesia, it dwells in burrows on sandy slopes and coral rubble between one and sixty-seven meters depth. Emerging partially to display its wide gaping jaws, it captures small damselfishes. Maximum recorded total length reaches one hundred and twenty centimetres.

Sources: Australian Museum — Ribbon Eel, Rhinomuraena quaesita