Yellow garden eel

The yellow garden eel (Heteroconger lueolus) is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Congridae, the conger and garden eels. This species is found in the Western Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

Yellow garden eel
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Anguilliformes
Family:	Congridae
Genus:	Heteroconger
Species:	H. luteolus
Binomial name
Heteroconger luteolus D. G. Smith, 1989

Taxonomy

The yellow garden eel was first formally described in 1989 by the American ichthyologist David George Smith with its type locality given as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida at 28°42'00.3"N, 84°20'00.7"W from a depth of 33 m (108 ft).^[2] This species is classified in the genus Heteroconger in the subfamily Heterocongrinae, the garden eels, of the family Congridae,^[3] which also includes the conger eels, Congridae belongs to the suborder Congroidei in the order Anguilliformes, the eels.^[4]

Taxonomy

The yellow garden eel is classified in the genus heteroconger, this name was coined by Pieter Bleeker and it prefixes conger with hetero, meaning different, because this genus was so different from the other conger genera Bleeker knew of. The specific name, luteolus, means "yellowish", an allusion to the bright yellow color on the back in life, paler yellow when preserved.^[5]

Description

The yellow garden eel is and eel, so it has a very elongated body with a tail which is longer than the head and trunk. It has a very short snout and an oblique, lower jaw that slightly protrudes beyond the upper jaw. The teeth are arranged in wide bands on the jaws and on the palatine. The top lip has flanges which cover the front of the snout and the front, tubular nostrils. The pectoral fins are just very small flaps of skin. The tip of the tail is stiff, with a small caudal fin and the dorsal and anal fins are united with the caudal fin. The lateral line has a large number of pores. The dorsal half of the head and adjacent body is bright yellow, marked with may small scattered dark spots. There is a sharp demarcation between the yellow dorsal color and the white ventral color. The lips are dark and the eye has a black bar separating the yellow upper iris from the lower white iris. This species reaches a length of 50 cm (20 in).^[6]

Distribution and habitat

The yellow garden eel is known only from the western Atlantic Ocean off Florida, it is found from southeastern Florida west into the Gulf of Mexico and north as far as Pensacola. This species is found at depths between 10 and 35 m (33 and 115 ft), living in burrows on the sandy seabed and poking out of its burrow to feed on plankton in the current.^[1]