---
title: Reticulate Snakemoray (Uropterygius nagoensis)
scientific_name: Uropterygius nagoensis
common_name: Reticulate Snakemoray
taxon: Moray eel
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-25T18:49:11.206Z
updated: 2026-08-17T22:24:40.890Z
tags: Reticulate Snakemoray, Uropterygius nagoensis, Moray eel, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/reticulate-snakemoray
---

# Reticulate Snakemoray (*Uropterygius nagoensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moray eel (*Muraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 80 cm
- **Depth:** 3-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Reef and rubble, inside the structure
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale network over a darker ground, finer toward the tail
- round body with fins reduced to low ridges
- up to 80 cm

The net is not drawn on. What looks like a pale mesh over the body is the gaps between dark blotches: the blotches grew until they touched, and what is left of the original background is the lines between them. Most reticulated patterns in animals work this way, which is why they get finer where the blotches are denser and open out where they are not, and why no two individuals carry quite the same net.

That matters for identification more than it sounds. Half the small morays here are distinguished on pattern, and pattern of this kind changes as the animal grows and the blotches spread. A young eel and an old one of the same species can look meaningfully different, which is one reason this group has been named, renamed and merged repeatedly.

The species name comes from Nago, on Okinawa, where it was first described. It reaches eighty centimeters, which makes it one of the larger snakemorays, and it lives the same way as the rest: inside the reef, out at night, essentially never seen.

## Also known as

- **English:** Nago Snakemoray
- **Czech:** muréna japonská
- **Japanese:** ナゴキカイウツボ, Nagokikaiutsubo

---

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