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
Ophichthidae
Ophichthidae is a family (biology), family of fish in the order (biology), order Anguilliformes, commonly known as the snake eels. The term "Ophichthidae" comes from Greek language, Greek ''ophis'' ("serpent") and ''ichthys'' ("fish"). Snake eels ...
(worm/snake eels).''Scolecenchelys acutirostris'' at www.fishbase.org. It was described by
Max Carl Wilhelm Weber
Max Carl Wilhelm Weber van Bosse or Max Wilhelm Carl Weber (5 December 1852 – 7 February 1937) was a German- Dutch zoologist and biogeographer.
Weber studied at the University of Bonn, then at the Humboldt University in Berlin with the z ...
and
Lieven Ferdinand de Beaufort
Lieven Ferdinand de Beaufort (March 23, 1879 in Den Treek, Leusden – 11 May 1968 in Amersfoort) was a Dutch biologist who, in 1903, participated in the North New Guinea Expedition. In the 1920s he was director of the Zoological Museum of ...
, originally under the genus ''
Muraenichthys
''Muraenichthys'' is a genus of eels in the snake eel family Ophichthidae
Ophichthidae is a family (biology), family of fish in the order (biology), order Anguilliformes, commonly known as the snake eels. The term "Ophichthidae" comes from Gr ...
''.Weber, M. and L. F. de Beaufort, 1916 ef. 4604''The fishes of the Indo-Australian Archipelago.'' III. Ostariophysi: II Cyprinoidea, Apodes, Synbranchi. E. J. Brill, Leiden. v. 3: i-xv + 1-455. It is a marine,
tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...
eel which is known from
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
, in the western
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 inhabits sandy areas near
reef
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geol ...
s. 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 ...