---
title: Largehead Snakemoray (Uropterygius macrocephalus)
scientific_name: Uropterygius macrocephalus
common_name: Largehead Snakemoray
taxon: Moray eel
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-25T18:48:35.209Z
updated: 2026-08-17T22:35:34.198Z
tags: Largehead Snakemoray, Uropterygius macrocephalus, Moray eel, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/largehead-snakemoray
---

# Largehead Snakemoray (*Uropterygius macrocephalus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moray eel (*Muraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 47 cm
- **Depth:** 1-14 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Coral rubble and reef flats in shallow water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- head noticeably large and broad for the body, slightly flattened on top
- plain brown, sometimes with faint pale speckling
- round body, fins barely visible
- up to 47 cm

The head is the point, and it is the reason for the name: broad, heavy, and flattened on top, out of proportion to a body that is otherwise a thin brown rope.

For an animal that makes its living by pushing into gaps, the head is the tool that goes first. It has to be wide enough to hold a working set of jaws and a decent bite, strong enough to shove rubble aside, and flat enough to enter a crack that the body can then follow through. Everything behind it is essentially a means of pushing it forward.

That is a different design from a moray that hunts from a hole. Those animals wait at an entrance and strike outward, and the head is a trap. This one carries the fight to the inside of the reef, into the spaces where small fish and shrimp sleep, and the head is a wedge with teeth.

It lives shallow, in coral rubble in the top ten meters or so, and like the rest of its group it is listed as rare mostly because nobody can find it.

## Also known as

- **English:** largehead moray, Largehead Snake Moray, Longhead Moray
- **French:** Murène à dents aiguillées
- **German:** Nadelzahnmuräne
- **Spanish:** morena cabezona, Morena Cabeza Grande, Morena Alfiletera
- **Portuguese:** Moréia-dente-de-agulha
- **Czech:** muréna velkohlavá
- **Chinese:** 大頭尾鯙, 大頭尾鱔, 巨頭鰭尾鯙

## Scientific synonyms

- *Anarchias knighti* Jordan & Starks, 1906
- *Gymnomuraena macrocephalus* Bleeker, 1864
- *Gymnomuraena nectura* Jordan & Gilbert, 1882
- *Uropterygius knighti* (Jordan & Starks, 1906)
- *Uropterygius makatei* Gosline, 1958
- *Uropterygius necturus* (Jordan & Gilbert, 1882)
- *Uropterygius reidi* Schultz, 1943
- *Uropterygus macrocephalus* (Bleeker, 1864)

## Range

Indian Ocean, Seychelles

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/largehead-snakemoray)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*