---
title: Ringed Snake Eel (Myrichthys colubrinus)
scientific_name: Myrichthys colubrinus
common_name: Ringed Snake Eel
taxon: Snake eels
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-26T15:30:51.648Z
updated: 2026-08-12T11:03:49.199Z
tags: Ringed Snake Eel, Myrichthys colubrinus, Snake eels, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snake-eels/ringed-snake-eel
---

# Ringed Snake Eel (*Myrichthys colubrinus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Snake eels (*Ophichthidae*)
- **Size:** up to 97 cm
- **Depth:** 0-35 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Open sand and rubble flats, out in the open in daylight
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- cream body ringed with 25 to 30 wide black bands, all the way round
- no fins visible, blunt snout, tubular nostrils
- swims openly over sand in daylight rather than hiding
- length up to 97 cm

A cream eel ringed with wide black bands from head to tail, up to 97 cm (38 in), moving over open sand in broad daylight with its head raised. Everything about that sentence is odd for an eel, and all of it is deliberate.

It is dressed as a sea krait. Banded sea snakes are venomous enough that reef predators leave them alone, and this eel copies the pattern closely enough to borrow the protection - a textbook case of a harmless animal wearing a dangerous animal's uniform. The disguise is what pays for the daylight foraging, since nothing else this defenseless crosses open sand at noon.

The twist is local. Sea kraits do not live in this sea, and neither does any other sea snake: the group is absent from the Red Sea, apparently blocked by cold water at the entrance. So the eel here is impersonating an animal that its predators have never met. Either the resemblance still works on general principles - a banded thing may simply be worth avoiding - or the pattern is a leftover from the wider Indo-Pacific, where the model is common.

It hunts small fish and crustaceans by pushing its head into sand, and buries itself tail-first with a hardened tail tip when it wants to disappear.

## Also known as

- **English:** harlequin snake-eel, Harlequin Snake Eel, Banded Snake Eel
- **French:** Murène Serpent Annelée, Anguille-serpent annelée
- **Japanese:** シマウミヘビ, Shimaumihebi
- **Chinese:** 斑竹花蛇鰻, 硬骨仔, 硬骨篡

## Scientific synonyms

- *Chlevastes colubrinus* (Boddaert, 1781)
- *Chlevastes elaps* Fowler, 1912
- *Dussumeiria elapsoides* (Castelnau, 1875)
- *Gymnothorax colubrinus* (Boddaert, 1781)
- *Muraena annulata* Ahl, 1789
- *Muraena colubrina* Boddaert, 1781
- *Muraena fasciata* Ahl, 1789
- *Myrichthys bleekeri* Gosline, 1951
- *Myrichthys colubrina* (Boddaert, 1781)
- *Myrichtys colubrinus* (Boddaert, 1781)
- *Ophichthys elapsoides* Castelnau, 1875
- *Ophisurus alternans* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Ophisurus fasciatus* Lacepède, 1802
- *Ophisurus fasciatus semicincta* Bleeker, 1864

## Range

Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles

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