Crafty Moray, Uropterygius versutus

Crafty Moray, Uropterygius versutus. Underwater photographs taken in Zihuantanejo Bay, Guerrero, March 2023. Photographs and identifications courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo.

The Crafty Moray, Uropterygius versutus, is a member of the Moray and Snake Eel or Muraenidae Family, that is also known as the Blackeye Snake-Moray and the Two-holes Moray and in Mexico as Morena de dos huecos and morena lista. Globally, there are twenty-one members in the genus Uropterygius, of which four are found in Mexican waters, one in the Atlantic and three in the Pacific Ocean.

The Crafty Moray has an elongated slender body that is compressed at the rear. Their tail is slightly longer than their head and trunk. They are a uniform brown or golden-brown color with some fish having irregular white blotches on the body. They have a short conical snout with a moderate sized eye that is found over the middle of the jaws. The front nostril is tubular; the rear nostril is a short tube above the eye. They have two, minute pores in front of the gill openings, pores above and below the eyes along the lower jaw. They have slender, sharp, conical teeth set in two rows on the jaws and one round of teeth on the roof of the mouth. The anal and dorsal fins are skin covered ridges near the tip of the caudal fin.

The Crafty Moray is a demersal species that is found within rocky reef habitats at depths up to 40 m (131 feet). They reach a maximum of 56 cm (22 inches) in length. The Crafty Moray is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

The Crafty Moray is found in all Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean including Clipperton and Revillagigedo Islands, except they are absent from along the West Coast of Baja and the northern two-thirds of the Sea of Cortez.

The Crafty Moray can be confused with the Hardtail Moray, Anarchias galapagensis (brown color with white stars; white tipped caudal fin), the Largehead Moray, Uropterygius macrocephalus (brown with yellow mottling, yellow tipped caudal fin), the Peppered Moray, Uropterygius polystictus (gray to light orange, peppered with black), and the Wide-mouth Moray, Gymnothorax eurygnathos (large head, dark with pale lichen-like blotches; yellow tipped caudal fin.

From a conservation perspective the Crafty Moray is currently considered to be of Least Concern, with stable, widely distributed populations.