With its thin body sticking out of a hole and its mouth wide open, the ribbon eel always looks ready to start nibbling. This light-eating fish is so ultra-thin that it takes very little food to fill its belly; it can miss a meal for a month and still survive. When it is hungry, the ribbon eel uses the odd-looking features of its face as taste receptors and motion detectors for nearby prey. To help keep the species thriving, males can perform an unusual trick; they turn into females to increase the chance to breed.
Open Mouth: The ribbon eel almost always has its mouth open, revealing its small but sharp, jagged teeth. It isn't always hungry-it keeps its mouth open so it can suck in water to pass over its gills to breathe.
Dig In: This eel uses the ultra-thin body that gave it its name to slide into a crevice in rocks or coral or to hide in the sand on the ocean floor. The ribbon eel usually pokes out only its head and throat as it searches for small fish to eat.
Super Sensitive[]
A male ribbon eel waits for a meal; later in life this eel may change into a female.
Like many other eels, the ribbon eel is nearly blind, so it relies on other senses to find food. This ambush predator first detects prey with the leaf-like extensions on its nostrils. These pick up the vibrations made by other creatures as they move around in the water. The ribbon eel can tell if the movements are made by large or small animals. The eel then uses the tentacle-like barbels on its chin, which hold its taste buds, to pick up traces left by the creatures and to determine if the animal is edible.
Fashion Sense: When young, all ribbon eels are jet-black with a yellow stripe along the dorsal fin. Males turn blue with yellow snouts and jaws and keep the yellow stripe on top. Adult females turn completely yellow, but are hardly ever seen because they hide from any threat.
Xtreme Changeup: Not only does this eel change color, it can also change gender. After several years of breeding, most males change into females. This helps keep the male/female ratio even so the eel population can thrive.
That's a Moray[]
The ribbon eel is a relative of the moray eel. The moray's body is thicker and its teeth are bigger, so it looks much more fierce when hanging out of a crevice with its mouth agape. In truth, the moray eel is no more aggressive than the ribbon eel; but because of its size, it can kill bigger fish.
Trivia[]
- The heading on the back, “That’s a Moray”, is a pun on the 1953 Dean Martin song, “That’s Amore”.