" I gots to know"

[Lawman]

that's what the bankrobber said to Dirty Harry after being asked
if he felt lucky...well I gots to know what I saw in Jamaica.

6' of water...it looked exactly like a snake. It was the size
of my thumb, about 20' long..light gray in color with cream
colored dots on the back the size of a pencil eraser.

It was slithering in and out of holes in the reef. I couldn't
see fins of any kind and it looked exactly like a snake, not
an eel. The head looked like a snake from up close.

My book says no sea snakes in the Carrib...so what was it?

 

[Walter]

It was a snake eel.

 

[Dee]

It could have been either a Sharptail Eel, which is my guess, or a Goldspot Eel.

The spots....were they fuzzy cream colored spots, as if you used a spray can to paint a dot? Like this Sharptail Eel...

or this...

Or were they bright golden yellow with dark outlines? Like this Goldspot Eel....

Walter, the snake eel has dark spots.

 

[scubatexastony]

@ Chakanaab reef.....20fsw

tony

 

[Walter]

Dee,

The Sharptail Eel and the Goldspot Eel are both types of snake eels, just like the Goldentail Moray and the Green Moray are both types of moray eels.

 

[Lawman]

I think I was looking at the Sharptail Eel.
It's the same shade of gray and the fuzzy
cream colored spots look like what I saw.

Thanks guys. It was really bugging me!!

It's being able to ask questions like this
and getting answers that makes ScubaBoard
such a great place to visit!!

 

[Scuba Barbie]

Dee,
How did you locate those photos on allenhost.com? Is there a main page or index for that site?
Thanks,
DD

 

[Dee]

Walter, I thought you were referring to the Spotted Snake Eel, pg. 375

Barb...allenhost.com is a photo hosting site. The photos I posted are in one of my photo albums on that site. The hosting site is still in it's initial testing phase and doesn't have a home page but if you're interested, I can give you Larry's email.

Oh yea...the eel photos are from Paul Humann's Fish ID CD.

 

[Walter]

Darlin',

You know me better than that. No "spotted" and all lower case.

 

[MSilvia]

I took this macro headshot of an eel I saw on a night dive off the Florida Keys. Looks like the same critter.

http://home.attbi.com/~msilvia7/eel.jpg