strange garden ee ?l and ornate eagle ray ?

Hi folks,

First, this garden eel, that is totally different in shape from the standard spotted garden eel (Heteroconger hassi), but I was not able to find any reference.. Any hint ?

(to see a short clip, go to my gallery )

Now, I also cross that one, which looks like an eagle ray, but not the common spotted one. continuous skin from snout to eagle and maze pattern on the back. Ornate eagle ray ?

Thank for your valuable help.

See you soon underwater

Daniel

yes, that is definitely the ornate eagle, i have only ever seen them in Palau.. they are beautiful and have such an amazingly long tail.

As for the garden eel, looks like someone has taken a bite out of its head

Yes its an ornate eagle ray. I saw one last year at 50 mtrs and my regular dive buddy saw two in the past month.

Like Mike says all in Palau.

One of them was huge, about double the size you would expect. My friend though it was a manta at first?

Daniel -

It looks like H. hassi to me - from the video it looks like the eel is participating in feeding behavior. It's mouth looks to be moving in a feeding posture and that give its head a strange shape in the video.

cheers!

- MDP

Daniel -

 

It looks like H. hassi to me - from the video it looks like the eel is participating in feeding behavior. It's mouth looks to be moving in a feeding posture and that give its head a strange shape in the video.

 

cheers!

 

- MDP

Well, the video on the site is of poor quality, but definitely feature two distinct specimen.

First, we've got H. hassi with no doubts. But then I spent five good minutes observing this one (which was part of another colony, approx 80 m. away) and it never looked "normal".

Now, looking at it with a different angle, it may be one individual with the bottom portion of the mouth missing... As this part was sligthly moving I thought it was the whole mouth gaping some food. But it could be that poor fellow, head tilted back trying to feed like the others... a view from face would have probably shown a big hole.

to compare to the normal and mouthless one:

Mike, I think that was a good guess.

Bty, you can now on tick that we got ornate rays in Australia too ( Milln Reef , Cairns ) ...

Cheers.