Cortez Garden Eel, Heteroconger digueti

Cortez Garden Eel, Heteroconger digueti. Underwater photograph taken within Bandaras Bay, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, July 2026. Photograph and identification courtesy of Greg Timms, youtube.com/@CoralmasterdivesPuertoVallarta/videos.

The Cortez Garden Eel, Heteroconger digueti, is a member of the Conger Eel or Congridae Family, this is also known as the Pale Garden Eel and in Mexico as congrio de Cortés and congrio descolorido amarilla. Globally, there are nineteen species in the Heteroconger Genus, of which five are found in Mexican waters, two in the Atlantic Ocean and three in the Pacific Ocean.

The Cortez Garden Eel has a very elongated compressed “eel-like” body with a very long tail. They are a light brown color with a few white patches on the head and several light bars on the lower half of the body. There is a dark spot on the gill cover and the anterior pores of the lateral line are surrounded by unpigmented areas. Their head is short with a very short snout and a very short mouth that does not reach the eyes. Their mouth is oblique with a slightly projecting lower jaw, that is equipped with teeth set in broad bands. Their anal and dorsal fins are confluent with the caudal fin; the pectoral fins are a small skin flaps, the tail has a stiff tip and small fin. They have a complete lateral line and numerous pores.

The Cortez Garden Eel is a non-migratory demersal species that is found half buried, that look like underwater grass waving in the current, within clean flat, sloping sandy substrate and reef edges, forming large colonies on sandy areas near shallow reefs at depths up to 25 m (82 feet). Their burrows are dug out with their rigid tail tips as vertical tubes. They reach a maximum of 63 cm (2 feet 1 inch) in length. They consume floating bits of drifting zooplankton. They avoid predation being able to withdraw into their burrows. Reproduction is oviparous. The Cortez Garden Eel is a poorly studied species with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, diet, growth, habitat, longevity, movement patterns, and reproduction.

The Cortez Garden Eel can be confused with Cape Garden Eel, Heteroconger canabus (dark brown), the Dotted Garden Eel, Gorgasia punctata (dark with wide spaced dark spots on the head and body) and the Mimic Garden Eel, Heteroconger pellegrini (head and body covered with dense tiny spots).

The Cortez Garden Eel is resident of Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean but limited to the Sea of Cortez and along the coast of the mainland south to Jalisco.

From a conservation perspective the Cortez Garden Eel is currently considered to be of Least Concern with locally abundant populations, however, they have a limited range. They are not of significant interest to humans other than scuba divers.