Moray eels have been bred for the first time at a Zoo in Austria, and the babies are now old enough to show off their very impressive teeth. “Up to now, nobody knew what the larvae look like, what they eat and how they behave“, said the zoo’s director, Dagmar Schratter, who hopes to breed more moray eels now that they’ve finally figured out the right conditions.
An epic fight between an octopus and an eel led the snorkeler at risk, as the frightened and defeated eel started swimming directly at him with its jaw open.
If you watch it closely, you can see that the eel managed to tear off one of the octopus’s arm.
this baby is a ribbon eel, part of a group of fish called the moray eels. moray eels are basically hilarious because they are always fucking delighted (they can’t actually close their mouths so basically they’re grinning from ear to ear every moment of their lives).
wait i hear you say, if they can’t close their mouths how do they eat. pharyngeal jaws, my friend, pharyngeal jaws. don’t know what those are?
have you ever seen alien?
i shit you not, moray eels have a second set of teeth in the back of their throats that are spring loaded to jump out and grab things that swim into their mouths.
now if that wasn’t awesome enough, the ribbon eel is the only protandric moray. that means that although this little fella is clearly, by his colouring, a young adult male, give him a long enough lifespan and he’ll get bigger, turn yellow-brown, and become female.
that’s right, this is a species made entirely of young pretty men and powerful older women.
also if you put them into captivity they stop eating and die within about a month. the ribbon eel lives to be free~
