---
title: Snowflake Moray (Echidna nebulosa)
scientific_name: Echidna nebulosa
common_name: Snowflake Moray
taxon: Moray eel
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-25T18:08:25.422Z
updated: 2026-08-12T11:24:04.971Z
tags: Snowflake Moray, Echidna nebulosa, Moray eel, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/snowflake-moray
---

# Snowflake Moray (*Echidna nebulosa*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moray eel (*Muraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1 m
- **Depth:** 0-48 m
- **Diet:** Crustacivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef flats and rubble, in holes by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- cream body with two rows of black star-shaped blotches, yellow flecks between them
- short blunt snout with a rounded jaw, not the long grip of the fish-eating morays
- often out hunting on shallow reef flats after dark
- length up to 1 m

A cream moray patterned with two rows of black star-shaped blotches and a scatter of yellow flecks, up to 1 m (3 ft), in the shallowest reef where nothing large should fit. It is common on rubble flats and in the first two meters of water, which is where most people meet it.

The teeth are the difference. The fish-eating morays carry backward-curved needles for gripping something that struggles; this one has blunt, pebble-like molars, because it eats crabs and shrimps and its problem is armor rather than escape. It crushes rather than holds.

That diet changes the animal. It hunts by smell rather than ambush, pushing into holes and cracks after crustaceans, and it will come out onto open rubble in shallow water at night to do it - behavior a fish-hunting moray cannot afford.

It is placid enough to be a standard aquarium species and still a moray: the bite is a crushing one, it does not let go quickly, and the mouth is full of bacteria. Watching one hunt a reef flat with a torch is the point; putting a hand near it is not.

## Also known as

- **English:** snowflake moray, Snowflake Eel, starry moray
- **Arabic:** Abu Jineh, Qmum muraqata, Asfan
- **Hebrew:** עכנון כוכבני
- **French:** Murène à Fleurs, Murène étoilée
- **Italian:** Murena stellata
- **German:** Sternchenmuräne, Sternfleckenmuräne
- **Spanish:** morena estrellada, Morena Copo de Nieve, Morena Estriada
- **Portuguese:** Moreia estrelada
- **Dutch:** Ster murene
- **Swedish:** Stjärnmuräna
- **Czech:** Muréna boschova, muréna hvězdovitá
- **Japanese:** クモウツボ, Kumo-utsubo, Kumoutsubo
- **Chinese:** 云纹海鳝, 星帶蝮鯙, 節仔鰻
- **Russian:** Звездчатая ехидна, Звездчатый мегадер
- **AF:** Blompaling
- **DA:** Snefnugmuræne, Stjernehimmel-muræne
- **FI:** Tähtimureena
- **FIJ:** bonu dakudakulauci
- **HU:** Fekete Kockás Muréna
- **ID:** Apate
- **MAH:** Hagman-lisadso
- **MAL:** Malanhi, മലഞ്ഞി, മാലഞി
- **MSA:** Belut-laut belang, Muria karang
- **SIN:** Pulli gal-gulla
- **SMO:** Ai'aiuga
- **SOM:** Kal
- **SW:** Mkunga-chui
- **TAH:** puhi
- **TEL:** సొలింగ పామ్, Saulinga-pam
- **TGL:** Ahas-dagat, Igat, Payangitan
- **TH:** ปลาไหลมอเรย์ลายเมฆ
- **VI:** Cá Chình bông

## Scientific synonyms

- *Echidna variegata* Forster, 1848
- *Gymnothorax boschi* (Bleeker, 1853)
- *Gymnothorax boschii* (Bleeker, 1853)
- *Lycodontis boschi* (Bleeker, 1853)
- *Muraena boschii* Bleeker, 1852
- *Muraena nebulosa* Ahl, 1789
- *Muraena ophis* Rüppell, 1830
- *Poecilophis nebulosa* (Ahl, 1789)

## Range

Comoros, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moray-eel/snowflake-moray)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*