Strophidon sathete ( Hamilton 1822 )

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 : 61-62

Strophidon sathete ( Hamilton 1822) —Longtail Moray

( Figure 40 )

Muraenophis sathete Hamilton 1822: 17 , 363 (Ganges estuaries near Calcutta, India). No types known.

Thyrsoidea macrura (Bleeker) : Ajiad 1987: 102 (Gulf of Aqaba).

Strophidon sathete: Randall & Golani 1995: 871 ; Golani & Bogorodsky 2010: 11; Golani & Fricke 2018: 23.

Red Sea material. None examined, based on report by Ajiad (1987).

Comparative material. Mozambique: USNM 312253 (1, 1041) . Pakistan: USNM 199673 (1, 182) ; USNM 427620 (1, 1197) . India: MNHN 2134 (1, 1460, holotype of Thyrsoidea longissima Kaup ) . Indonesia: BMNH 1867.11 . 28.212 (1, 2265, holotype of Muraena macrura Bleeker ); RMNH 7206 (1, 2425) . Philippines: USNM 84213 (1, 1021) ; USNM 135176 (1, 590) ; USNM 136598 (1, 1510) . Taiwan: USNM 312252 (1, 486) . Japan: USNM 75945 (1, 824) ; USNM 160610 (1, 1118) . Fiji: USNM 259863 (1, 130).

Description. In TL: preanal length 2.2–2.9, predorsal length 11–17, head length 8.1–13, body depth at anus 37–63. In head length: snout length 6.8–12, eye diameter 13–29, upper-jaw length 2.7–3.7. Pores: LL 1–8, SO 2–3, IO 3–4, POM 6. Vertebrae: predorsal 7–14, preanal 71–84, total 183–212.

Body very elongate; anus well before midlength; dorsal-fin origin before gill opening. Snout long, jaws of equal length. Eye small, closer to tip of snout than to rictus. Anterior nostril tubular; posterior above and slightly behind anterior margin of eye. Usually three infraorbital pores; 1–8 branchial pores.

Teeth pointed, smooth. Intermaxillary teeth in a single peripheral series, about 4–9 on each side; 1–4 median teeth. Maxillary and dentary teeth biserial anteriorly and uniserial posteriorly, the inner teeth larger and fewer than outer. Vomerine teeth uniserial, about 8–17.

Color: grayish brown, paler ventrally, the fins darker.

Reported to reach 375 cm.

Distribution and habitat. Indo-West Pacific from East Africa and the Red Sea to New Caledonia and Fiji. Occurs on mud bottom in burrows in lagoons and estuaries; nocturnal. The Red Sea record is based on two specimens reported by Ajiad (1987) taken by hook and line in 50 m at Nuweiba, Gulf of Aqaba.

Remarks. This is the longest of all moray eels, reaching nearly 4 m, but very slender. The forward placement of the eye is distinctive, as is the usual presence of three rather than four infraorbital pores and up to eight branchial pores. The wide range of vertebral counts and recent DNA evidence indicate that more than one species are included under this name. It has frequently been referred to in the literature as Thyrsoidea macrura . No COI sequence data from Red Sea specimens was available for this species, but the phylogeny ( Fig. 48 ) includes sequences from specimens from other localities. In our search for sequences representative for this species, we found that there are two closely related clades with reciprocally exclusive distributions (as of the sequences found in BOLD). One clade only contained specimens from China and Taiwan, whereas the other included specimens from a wider area, encompassing Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, India and South Africa (not all localities were included in the present analysis, see Fig. 48 ). With its type locality in India, we suggest that the latter clade represents the species described as Strophidon sathete , but without further analysis we refrain from any firm conclusions and we provisionally keep both clades under that name. Strophidon sathete formed a highly supported clade with two other congeneric species (i.e. S. dorsalis (Seale) and Strophidon sp.).

Figures

FIGURE 40. Strophidon sathete, Maumere Bay, Indonesia. Photo by J.E. Randall.

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.