📸 PhotoPhoto: User:rydia · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Kidako moray
Gymnothorax kidako (Kidako moray · ウツボ)
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 Its maximum standard length of 91.5 cm is similar to the length of an adult's long umbrella (Comparison).
- 💡 Its skin is used as a material for leather crafts (National List of Species of Korea).
- 💡 In some districts of Japan, it is used as a food fish, and it sometimes snatches fish caught by divers (FishBase).
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
The Kidako moray is a moray eel living in coral reefs and rocky areas, hiding its body in rock crevices.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Its body is eel-shaped with dark brown vertical bands running along a dark gray background. Its gill openings and the area around them are black, its dorsal, anal, and tail fins are fused into one, and its teeth are sharp like awls.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
It preys on small fishes and mollusks in rocky areas around coral reefs within 30 m depth. When young, it passes through a flat larval stage called a leptocephalus.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
It is listed on the National List of Species of Korea and is recorded in Tongyeong, Busan, Pohang, and Jeju. It is noted that its bite can cause severe wounds.
📚 Sources & References
- • IUCN Red List LC (2019) — https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/195743/2411447
- • IUCN Red List category LC — latest assessment at iucnredlist.org
- • catalogueoflife.org — 3HVD2
- • iucnredlist.org — 2411447
- • 국가생물종목록(국립생물자원관) ktsn 120000057423 — https://species.nibr.go.kr/home/mainHome.do?cont_link=009&subMenu=009002&contCd=009002&ktsn=120000057423
- • wikidata.org — Q1071805
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Kidako moray.JPG
- • fishbase.se — Gymnothorax-kidako.html
- • species.nibr.go.kr — mainHome.do
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — author not recorded · Public Domain Mark 1.0 (Congeneric silhouette — Gymnothorax polyuranodon)
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.