Thursday, January 04, 2007

The ugliness continues.....

...with this; the brilliantly named, hideously ugly and inexplicably day-glo orange Reptile Snake Eel. Seriously, if anyone can come up with a good explanation for that colour I'd be keen to hear it.


snake eel



These chaps appear from the sands of the indopacific at night and appear to be ambush predators. I'm also unclear as to whether this is the same species as the crocodile snake eel (pictures of that to follow) or not as classification on these seems confused and I can't match common and latin names. Anyway lets forget the taxonomy and marvel at nature's, erm, "beauty."

4 comments:

Bob Awards said...

Hello Tai-Haku!

You have won a BOB – Award!
Thank you for being Sparkly and exciting enough!
Your blog won because of it's wildlife-boggling, nature interest and of course the wonderful photographies.
You make other bloggers proud and the internet beam. We really like what you write and have written, splendid!

And yes that fish is rather ugly.

Please do go fetch your award here!

With very much love, Bob-Awards.

DirkStar said...

Hello fellow Bob winner!

Nice fun blog.


The orange color is one of the colors in nature that implies; poison, beware!

It keeps the little fellow safe from other creatures that may eye it as a potential meal.

tai haku said...

wow! thanks Bob-awarders; I will wear my badge with pride.

Dirk - you are f course correct that orange typically represents the threat of toxins. In this case however the animal is not poisonous and spends its life hidden with just the eyes showing. I think it may be intended as a shock pattern if the eel has to abandon its burrow but am not sure.

tai haku said...

Ps forgot to mention that, at 3ft long, these chaps have relatively few predators in the shallow mud slopes they inhabit