Thanks for joining Wild Facts on this beautiful Tuesday. I promise you will be happy that you joined us today since I can personally guarantee that today’s fact will be excEELent. That’s right, animal fans, we are heading to the Sea to learn about the Moray Eel. We definitely have our choice of Moray Eel since there are about 200 species in existence today (that we know about). Instead of going through all of them we will just focus on the group as a whole. Sound like a plan? Perfect, let’s get into it then.
As mentioned there are quite a few different Moray Eel species and as a result they vary in size and colour. You can have smaller eels that measure only 11.5 cm (4.5″) or you can have slightly larger Moray Eels coming in at a whopping 3 m (9.8′). Oh and those longer eels can weigh up to an astonishing 36 kg (79 lbs). Just picture a 79 lb eel swimming up your shorts while you are looking at some nice ocean scenery. Yikes!
To make matters even worse, that same Moray Eel that is swimming around your shorts will generally have large eyes and a very large mouth with proportionate sized teeth. There is no need to worry as they prefer to feed on fish, squid, crabs and other ocean animals. In fact, they should be more scared of you since humans tend to be one of their predators, along with sharks and larger fish. For the most part, you probably won’t even know that a Moray Eel is in the area. They tend to be quite secretive as this gives them a huge advantage when ambushing their prey. As well, if they are hidden then it becomes more difficult for predators to find and eat them.
Since we are on the topic of feeding, we might as well talk about one of the most interesting features of the Moray Eel. You see the head of this eel is too narrow so they can’t create a negative pressure. Big deal, right? Well, it actually is since this means they can’t swallow their prey like a normal animal. Tough to get the nutrients if you can’t swallow your food. So how do they cope with this? Well, they have a second set of jaws located in their throat, with teeth and all. So now when they capture their prey they will launch this second set of jaws (called Pharyngeal Jaws) into their mouth which will transport the unsuspecting victim down their throat and into their digestive system. How is that for a party trick?!
Well that does it for today’s Wild Fact. See all of you here tomorrow for another amazing animal.
