---
title: Peppered Moray (Gymnothorax pictus)
scientific_name: Gymnothorax pictus
common_name: Peppered Moray
taxon: Moray eel
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-25T18:24:28.490Z
updated: 2026-08-14T21:30:32.013Z
tags: Peppered Moray, Gymnothorax pictus, Moray eel, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/peppered-moray
---

# Peppered Moray (*Gymnothorax pictus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moray eel (*Muraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 140 cm
- **Depth:** 0-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Intertidal rock, reef flats and shallow rubble
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale body densely peppered with small dark spots that never join into a network
- blunt short snout, small eye
- in very shallow water, often on the reef flat at low tide
- length up to 140 cm

A pale moray peppered in fine dark spots, living in the shallowest water of any eel here - reef flats, intertidal rock, and the last few centimeters at the edge.

It hunts crabs, and it does it out of the sea. This species has been recorded leaving the water entirely to chase crabs across wet rock, wriggling over the surface for a meter or more and returning with the catch - behavior it can afford because a moray takes oxygen through its skin and can hold water in its gills. A fish going ashore after prey is not something most people expect to see on a reef flat.

Underwater it is a daytime hunter, which is also unusual for the family, working shallow rubble in the open rather than waiting inside a hole.

One and a half meters (4.6 ft) at its largest. Like the others it has a second set of jaws in the throat that reach forward to drag prey down. Ciguatoxins have been reported from large individuals, which is the flag - and the bite is the reason for the other one.

## Also known as

- **English:** Bar-cheeked Eel, Speckled Sidereal Moray, painted reef eel
- **French:** Murène grise des flaques, Murène Poivrée, Murène Sidérale
- **Spanish:** Morena Pecas Pintura, Morena Pimienta
- **Japanese:** アセウツボ, Aseutsubo
- **TAH:** puhi ti'ahu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Gymnothorax picta* (Ahl, 1789)
- *Muraena picta* Ahl, 1789
- *Siderea picta* (Ahl, 1789)
- *Siderea pictus* (Ahl, 1789)
- *Sideria picta* (Ahl, 1789)

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, New Zealand, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/peppered-moray)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*