The garden eels are the subfamily Heterocongrinae in the conger eel 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 ...

. The majority of the 36 known species of garden eels live in the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, but can be found in warm ocean water worldwide. These small

eels Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order (biology), order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 Family (biology), families, 164 genus, genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the earl ...

live in burrows on the sea floor and get their name from the behavior of poking their heads from their burrows to feed on plankton while most of their bodies remain hidden. Since they tend to live in groups, the many eel heads "growing" from the sea floor resemble the plants in a garden. They vary in color and size depending on the species. The largest species reaches about in length, but most species do not surpass . Garden eel colonies can grow as large as one acre in surface area and number up to several thousand individuals.

Genera

Hetercongrinae contains the following two genera:

References

Congridae Taxa named by Albert Günther {{Anguilliformes-stub