''Ariosoma major'' is an

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

in the family

Congridae The Congridae are the family of conger and garden eels. Congers are valuable and often large food fishes, while garden eels live in colonies, all protruding from the sea floor after the manner of plants in a garden (thus the name). The family in ...

(conger/garden eels).''Ariosoma major''
at www.fishbase.org. It was described by

Hirotoshi Asano Hirotoshi (written: 弘寿, 弘年, 博敏, 博俊, 裕稔, 浩俊 or 広俊) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese sumo wrestler *, Japanese samurai *, Japanese businessman *, Japanese baseball play ...

in 1958, originally as a subspecies of '' Alloconger shiroanago'', which was later moved under the genus ''

Ariosoma ''Ariosoma'' is a genus of marine congrid true eel, eels. Species There are 42 species currently recognized in this genus by William N. Eschmeyer, Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: * ''Ariosoma albimaculatum'' Kodeeswaran, Dash, Kumar & Lal, 2022 * ...

''.Asano, H., 1958 (15 July) ef. 12045''Studies on the conger eels of Japan. I. Description of two new subspecies referable to the genus Alloconger.'' Dobutsugaku Zasshi = Zoological Magazine Tokyo v. 67 (no. 7): 191-196. It is a marine,

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

water-dwelling eel which is known from the eastern

China Sea The China Seas consist of a series of marginal seas in the Western Pacific Ocean, around China. They are the major components signifying the transition from the continent of Asia to the Pacific Ocean.Pinxian Wang, Qianyu Li, Chun-Feng Li, ''Geol ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, in the northwestern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. It has a widespread distribution, and inhabits sandy regions. Males can reach a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of 53 centimetres. The diet of ''Ariosoma major'' consists primarily of

bony fish Osteichthyes ( ; ), also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a Biodiversity, diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondricht ...

and

crabs Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the thorax. Their exoskeleton is often thickened and ha ...

.Food items reported for ''Ariosoma major''
at www.fishbase.org.

References

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

Taxa named by Hirotoshi Asano Fish described in 1958 {{Anguilliformes-stub