---
title: Shortfin Snakemoray (Uropterygius micropterus)
scientific_name: Uropterygius micropterus
common_name: Shortfin Snakemoray
taxon: Moray eel
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-25T18:48:54.912Z
updated: 2026-08-18T06:41:05.621Z
tags: Shortfin Snakemoray, Uropterygius micropterus, Moray eel, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/shortfin-snakemoray
---

# Shortfin Snakemoray (*Uropterygius micropterus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moray eel (*Muraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 37 cm
- **Depth:** 0-10 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Rubble, reef flats and intertidal rock
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- small plain brown eel, under 40 cm
- fins so reduced that the body looks finless
- in rubble and under rock in very shallow water
- up to 37 cm

Nearly every one of these small burrowing morays is listed as rare, and the label is mostly an artifact of how they get found.

You cannot survey an animal that never leaves the inside of the reef. It is not shy, it is not scarce in any way anyone has demonstrated, it is simply never in view. Almost all the specimens in collections came out of two situations: rubble broken apart by hand, and chemical collecting stations, where a small enclosed patch of reef is treated with an anaesthetic and everything hidden in it comes out. Do that on a reef flat and the number of eels that emerge from a few square meters is routinely startling to the people doing it.

So rare, in this group, means undetectable rather than uncommon. It is worth keeping in mind whenever a small cryptic animal carries the label.

This is one of the smallest of them, under forty centimeters, plain brown, with fins reduced almost to nothing, living in rubble and under rocks in water shallow enough to wade.

## Also known as

- **English:** Shortfinned Reef-eel, Shortfin Snake Moray, Tidepool Snake Moray
- **Spanish:** Morena de Poza mareal
- **Czech:** muréna maloploutvá
- **Japanese:** アミキカイウツボ, Amikikaiutsubo
- **Chinese:** 小鰭尾鯙, 小鰭尾鱔, 小鰭鰭尾鯙
- **TGL:** Malibanos

## Scientific synonyms

- *Muraena micropterus* Bleeker, 1852

## Range

Mozambique, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/shortfin-snakemoray)*
*Updated: August 18, 2026*