---
title: Longtail Moray (Strophidon sathete)
scientific_name: Strophidon sathete
common_name: Longtail Moray
taxon: Moray eel
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-25T18:47:01.158Z
updated: 2026-08-13T23:33:57.290Z
tags: Longtail Moray, Strophidon sathete, Moray eel, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/longtail-moray
---

# Longtail Moray (*Strophidon sathete*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moray eel (*Muraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 4 m
- **Depth:** 0-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Silty bays, estuaries and harbors, in mud burrows
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- extremely long thin brown body, the tail more than half the total length
- small head for the size of the animal, eyes set well forward
- in mud and silt rather than on coral
- length up to 4 m

The longest moray in the world - four meters (13 ft) of eel, most of it tail, living in mud rather than coral. It is also one that almost no diver has seen, because it lives where nobody dives: silty bays, estuaries, harbor bottoms and river mouths.

Everything about it is stretched. The head is small, the body is thin, and more than half the total length is behind the vent, which lets the animal thread itself into burrows in soft sediment and reverse out again. Where a reef moray occupies a hole in rock, this one makes its own in mud.

It tolerates brackish water and goes well up into estuaries, which is unusual for a moray and part of why the species is so rarely recorded - the habitat is unattractive, the water is turbid, and a four-meter animal in it is invisible.

Like all morays it has a second set of jaws in the throat that reach forward to drag prey down. A bite from an animal this size is a serious injury; the flag on this card reflects that rather than any tendency to use it.

## Also known as

- **English:** slender giant moray, Giant Estuarine Moray, Tide Guage Eel
- **Hebrew:** ניבן נפיל
- **French:** Murène à longue queue, Murène fil géante
- **Italian:** Murena coda lunga gigante
- **German:** Riesen-Deltamuräne
- **Spanish:** Morena esbelta gigante, Morenilla Gigante
- **Portuguese:** Moréia-dragão-indiana
- **Czech:** muréna ganžská
- **Japanese:** オナガウツボ, Onagautsubo, タケウツボ
- **Chinese:** 長鯙
- **Russian:** Хвостатый эвенхелис, Стофидон-уи
- **TGL:** Malibanos, Payangitan
- **TH:** ปลาหลดหินยักษ์เรียว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Evenchelys macrurus* (Bleeker, 1854)
- *Gymnothorax sathete* (Hamilton, 1822)
- *Lycodontis longicaudata* McClelland, 1844
- *Lycodontis sathete* (Hamilton, 1822)
- *Muraena macrurus* Bleeker, 1854
- *Muraena sathete* (Hamilton, 1822)
- *Muraenophis sathete* Hamilton, 1822
- *Strophidon ui* Tanaka, 1918
- *Thyrosidea macrura* (Bleeker, 1854)
- *Thyrsoidea longissima* Kaup, 1856
- *Thyrsoidea macrura* (Bleeker, 1854)

## Range

Mozambique, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/longtail-moray)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*