Spotted garden eel
Heteroconger hassi
— Where the name comes from
Heteroconger is “different conger”, from héteros and conger; hassi recalls Hans Hass, the Austrian biologist and film-maker who in the 1940s first brought underwater photography to a wide public. The common name comes from how the colonies look from a distance: a swaying lawn, which vanishes as you approach.
— Facts
- Group
- Fish · Actinopterygii · Chondrichthyes
- Order
- Eels
- Habitat
- Current-swept sand flats between 7 and 45 metres
- Range
- The tropical Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to Polynesia
- Size
- 35–40 cm, 20–40 g
- Diet
- Zooplankton taken one item at a time from the current
- Lifespan
- 10 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It lives in colonies of hundreds, each in its own burrow.
- 02
It never leaves the hole: it emerges halfway and withdraws in a flash.
- 03
The burrow walls are cemented with mucus produced by the tail.
— What sets it apart
It digs backwards. The tip of the tail is hardened and used as a drill to sink into the sand, while a skin gland secretes mucus that binds the grains and turns the shaft into a rigid tube: the burrow becomes a permanent structure in which the animal spends its whole life. The colonies all face the same way, into the current, and to an approaching diver they vanish in waves — then, if you stay still for a few minutes, they reappear one at a time.
