Morays Excerpt

THE MORAY
Introduction by DR. MARCO LICHTENBERGER


The moray, with its decidedly un-fishlike body style and gaping jaws, has both fascinated and repulsed humans for more than 2,000 years. The first known keepers of morays were the Romans; according to the chroniclers, they were kept in so-called vivariums—stone tanks filled with saltwater and fed by a piped supply—as food for banquets and sometimes as pets. Publius Vedius Pollio, a Roman equestrian who died in 15 BC, reportedly threw disobedient or incompetent slaves into his tank of moray eels, specimens apparently large enough and hungry enough to attack human-sized prey. The writer Tertullian claimed rhetorically that Pollio had the morays “cooked straight away, so that in their entrails he himself might have a taste of his slaves’ bodies, too.”

Moray myths
Even after the fall of the Roman Empire, morays did not disappear from menus all around the Mediterranean, although for a long time they weren’t kept specifically for eating. In the days of the great sailing ships, when giant squids and other sea monsters made the seas perilous, Green Morays (Gymnothorax funebris) were preserved in alcohol and offered as proof that sea serpents really existed—they were thought to be the 80-inch (2-m) juveniles of these ship-swallowing monsters.

The natives of the South Sea Islands had quite different stories about these unusual fishes: legend had it that Hawaiian morays would come ashore and climb up trees in order to drop from a great height onto unwary humans and bite them. Nowadays it is known that a number of species do actually leave the sea for up to 30 minutes to hunt on land. But they are after crabs, not humans, and it is rather doubtful that they actually climb trees; they have, in fact, been found in trees, but this may be attributable to a childish prank.

The morays achieved particular public attention when the author Peter Benchley (of Jaws fame) wrote about them in his novel, The Deep (1976), in which a moray attacks a human. A year later the book was made into a movie of the same title, which is probably now better known than the book. The scene with the moray attack has remained in the memories of many people, and to the present day influences their view of these creatures.

Morays are regarded as aggressive, and, according to some sources, have deadly, venomous bites. The first assertion is demonstrably true; there have been reliably documented incidents of various moray species attacking and biting divers without any discernible provocation. Nevertheless, the majority of all moray attacks can be attributed to the inappropriate behavior of humans entering the habitat of these fishes.

Some of the worst confrontations have involved spear fishermen who hit large specimens without killing them and then found the tables turned. Other typical mistakes made during encounters with wild morays have included reaching into their retreats or feeding them. Due to their poor eyesight, morays may snatch at something they perceive as food—including human fingers—and their strikes are lightning fast. These misguided actions have provoked dramatic attacks involving these extremely belligerent fishes, sometimes resulting in the loss of limbs or other permanent damage.

In 1996, one pair of morays even had to be translocated, as they lived in a much-frequented dive site (Old Cod Hole, on the Great Barrier Reef, near Cairns, Australia) and, during one feeding attempt, shredded the arm of a woman diver from New Zealand to such an extent that it could not be saved. Sadly, the morays died during the translocation. Many diving tour organizers have sensibly abandoned the feeding of morays and sharks in order to avoid attacks by aggressive specimens that have become used to humans (such as the notorious Green Moray known as “Psycho” in the Caymans, who has already badly injured several people)

Caption: Goldentail Moray (Gymnothorax miliaris) a Caribbean species. photo by DENISE NIELSEN TACKETT

Read the full article in the September/October 2009 issue of CORAL, available as a back issue.