When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That's a Moray
When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a Moray
Moray eels can hunt on land, and footage from a recent study highlights how they accomplish this feat with a sneaky second set of jaws.
Video
https://vp.nyt.com/video/2021/06/21/94312_1_22tb-eelvideo-01_wg_720p.mp4
When an eel wants a squid that’s on land — God forbid! — that’s a moray.CreditCredit...Mehta et al.
By Sabrina Imbler
June 22, 2021
In the video, forceps nudge a piece of squid that sits on a ramp as an offering. Suddenly, a snowflake moray eel named Qani heaves its muscled bucatini of a body out of the water and onto the ramp. It opens its mouth and bites the squid. The eel pauses a moment, opens its mouth again and, as if its tongue were a conveyor belt, sucks the squid even deeper into its mouth using a secret second set of jaws in its throat.
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Dr. Mehta first described the moray eel’s second set of choppers, known as pharyngeal jaws, in 2007. When a moray hunts, it seizes its prey with the teeth of its outer jaw, and then its pharyngeal jaws leap forward out of the throat and into the mouth to grasp the prey and drag it deeper into the eel’s body.
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And morays climbing out of water came as no surprise to some observers. Lana Sinapayen, an artificial life researcher who grew up in the Caribbean island of Martinique, said local fishermen often caught morays by placing squids on the shore and waiting for the eels to arrive. “You only need a solid stick to take your pick,” she wrote in an email. Dr. Sinapayen was not involved in the research but wanted to emphasize that many local people have long known that morays can hunt on land.
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“Fish are mostly suction feeders and catch prey by sucking water in the mouth,” said Peter Wainwright, a fish biomechanics expert at the University of California, Davis, who has previously worked with Dr. Mehta but was not involved with the new research. He added that “morays have evolved away from suction feeding.”
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