New record of a rare moray eel, Enchelycore kamara Böhlke & Böhlke, 1980 (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), from the Philippines
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Published
Sep 8, 2025
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Wen-Chien Huang
Rodulf Anthony T. Balisco
Abstract
A single specimen (957 mm total length) of the rare moray eel Enchelycore kamara Böhlke & Böhlke, 1980, was collected from the Puerto Princesa New Public Market, Palawan, Philippines, representing the largest recorded size for the species and its first record in Philippine waters. A brief description, fresh photographs, and a COI sequence were provided for this specimen. The distribution range of E. kamara was also updated based on additional specimens, sequences, and underwater photographs obtained from online public sources.
How to Cite
Huang W-C, Balisco RAT. 2025. New record of a rare moray eel, Enchelycore kamara Böhlke & Böhlke, 1980 (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), from the Philippines. The Palawan Scientist. 17(2):71–78. https://doi.org/10.69721/TPS.J.2025.17.2.08.
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Keywords
DNA barcoding, maximum size, Muraeninae, Pacific Ocean, taxonomy
References
Böhlke EB, McCosker JE and Böhlke JE. 1989. Family Muraenidae. In: Böhlke EB (ed). Fishes of the Western North Atlantic. Memoirs of the Sears Foundation for Marine Research, 1 (part 9). Yale University, New Haven, pp. 104-206. https://doi.org/10.12987/9781933789323-010
Böhlke EB. 1982. Vertebral formulae for type specimens of eels (Pisces: Anguilliformes). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 134: 31-49.
Böhlke JE and Böhlke EB. 1980. Enchelycore kamara: a new moray from the tropical Pacific Ocean. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 132: 173-175.
Cabebe-Barnuevo RA, Obar EAA, Penuela DFA, Motomura H, Babaran RP and Malay MCD. 2023. Two new records of moray eels representing genera Gymnothorax and Strophidon (Actinopterygii: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from the Philippines. Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria, 53: 217-226. https://doi.org/10.3897/aiep.53.108838
Felsenstein J. 1985. Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using bootstrap. Evolution, 39: 783-791. https://doi.org/10.2307/2408678
Fricke R, Eschmeyer WN and Fong JD. 2025. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Genera/Species by Family/Subfamily. http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/SpeciesByFamily.asp. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
Froese R and Pauly D. (eds). 2024. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
GBIF (Global Information Facility). 2025. https://www.gbif.org/. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
GenBank. 2025. GenBank Overview. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
Hatooka K. 1986. Sexual dimorphism found in teeth of three species of moray eels. Japanese Journal of Ichthyology, 32(4): 379-386. https://doi.org/10.11369/jji1950.32.379
Huang WC, Balisco RA, Evacitas FC and Liao TY. 2023a. Description of a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from the Philippines, with a preliminary assessment of genetic and morphological variations of the Uropterygius concolor species complex. Journal of Fish Biology, 103(3): 593-602. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.15472
Huang WC, Chen HM and Liao TY. 2019. Revalidation of a moray eel, Gymnothorax mucifer Snyder, 1904 (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), with a revised distribution. Zootaxa, 4559(1): 151-165. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4559.1.6
Huang WC, Chen HM, Tseng YC and Liao TY. 2022a. Assessing phenovariant species pairs of moray eels: Hybridization, introgression, and morphology. Zoologica Scripta, 51(6): 676-694. https://doi.org/10.1111/zsc.12560
Huang WC, Hibino Y, Balisco RA and Liao TY. 2024. Description of a new uniformly brown estuarine moray eel (Anguilliformes, Muraenidae) from the Central Indo-Pacific Ocean. In: Ho HC, Russell B, Hibino Y and Lee MY (eds). Biodiversity and taxonomy of fishes in Taiwan and adjacent waters. ZooKeys, 1220: 15-34. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1220.129685
Huang WC, Liao TY and Tan HH. 2023b. Uropterygius cyamommatus, a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from anchialine caves in Christmas Island, Australia, and Panglao Island, the Philippines. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 71: 268-278. https://doi.org/10.26107/RBZ-2023-0021
Huang WC, Loh KH and Chen HM. 2022b. Gymnothorax poikilospilus, a new moray eel (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from Penghu Islands, western Taiwan. Zootaxa, 5189(1): 87-102. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5189.1.11
Huang WC, Smith DG, Loh KH and Liao TY. 2021. Two new moray eels of genera Diaphenchelys and Gymnothorax (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from Taiwan and the Philippines. Zoological Studies, 60: 24. https://doi.org/10.6620/ZS.2021.60-24
Kimura M. 1980. A simple method for estimating evolutionary rate of base substitutions through comparative studies of nucleotide sequences. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 16: 111-120. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01731581
Kumar S, Stecher G, Suleski M, Sanderford M, Sharma S and Tamura K. 2024. MEGA12: Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis version 12 for adaptive and green computing. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 41(12): msae263. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msae263
Mohapatra A, Smith DG, Mohanty SR, Mishra SS and Tudu PC. 2017. Enchelycore propinqua sp. nov., a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae: Muraeninae) from the Indian Coast. Zootaxa, 4319(3): 595-599. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4319.3.11
Myers RF. 1999. Micronesian reef fishes: a comprehensive guide to the coral reef fishes of Micronesia, 3rd revised and expanded edition. Coral Graphics, Barrigada, Guam, 330pp.
Myers RF, Burdick DR, Mundy BC, Lindfield SJ, Tibbatts B and Donaldson TJ. 2025. New and recent records of fishes from the Mariana Islands, western Pacific Ocean. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 42: 15-90. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14750902
Ratnasingham S, Wei C, Chan D, Agda J, Agda J, Ballesteros-Mejia L, Ait Boutou H, El Bastami ZM, Ma E, Manjunath R, et al. 2024. BOLD v4: A Centralized Bioinformatics Platform for DNA-Based Biodiversity Data. In: DeSalle R (ed). DNA barcoding: Methods and protocols. Springer US, New York, pp. 403-441. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3581-0_26
Reece JS, Bowen BW, Smith DG and Larson A. 2010. Molecular phylogenetics of moray eels (Muraenidae) demonstrates multiple origins of a shell-crushing jaw (Gymnomuraena, Echidna) and multiple colonizations of the Atlantic Ocean. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 57(2): 829-835. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2010.07.013
Shibukawa K, Takata Y and Shinohara G. 2007. First record of a rare moray, Enchelycore kamara (Actinopterygii: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), from Amami-oshima Island, Ryukyu Islands, Japan. Species Diversity, 12(3): 187-192. https://doi.org/10.12782/specdiv.12.187
Smith DG and Böhlke EB. 2022. Muraenidae. In: Heemstra PC, Heemstra E, Ebert DA, Holleman W and Randall JE (eds). Coastal fishes of the western Indian Ocean. Volume 2. South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Makhanda, pp. 37-79.
Smith DG, Bogorodsky SV, Mal AO and Alpermann TJ. 2019. Review of the moray eels (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) of the Red Sea, with description of a new species. Zootaxa, 4704(1): 1-87. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4704.1.1
Smith DG, Brokovich E and Einbinder S. 2008. Gymnothorax baranesi, a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from the Red Sea. Zootaxa, 1678(1): 63-68. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.1678.1.4
Smith DG. 2012. A checklist of the moray eels of the world (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae). Zootaxa, 3474(1): 1-64. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3474.1.1
Tamura K and Nei M. 1993. Estimation of the number of nucleotide substitutions in the control region of mitochondrial DNA in humans and chimpanzees. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 10: 512-526. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040023
Tang KL and Fielitz C. 2013. Phylogeny of moray eels (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), with a revised classification of true eels (Teleostei: Elopomorpha: Anguilliformes). Mitochondrial DNA, 24(1): 55-66. https://doi.org/10.3109/19401736.2012.710226
Ward RD, Zemlak TS, Innes BH, Last PR and Hebert PD. 2005. DNA barcoding Australia’s fish species. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 360: 1847-1857. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1716
Böhlke EB. 1982. Vertebral formulae for type specimens of eels (Pisces: Anguilliformes). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 134: 31-49.
Böhlke JE and Böhlke EB. 1980. Enchelycore kamara: a new moray from the tropical Pacific Ocean. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 132: 173-175.
Cabebe-Barnuevo RA, Obar EAA, Penuela DFA, Motomura H, Babaran RP and Malay MCD. 2023. Two new records of moray eels representing genera Gymnothorax and Strophidon (Actinopterygii: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from the Philippines. Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria, 53: 217-226. https://doi.org/10.3897/aiep.53.108838
Felsenstein J. 1985. Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using bootstrap. Evolution, 39: 783-791. https://doi.org/10.2307/2408678
Fricke R, Eschmeyer WN and Fong JD. 2025. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Genera/Species by Family/Subfamily. http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/SpeciesByFamily.asp. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
Froese R and Pauly D. (eds). 2024. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
GBIF (Global Information Facility). 2025. https://www.gbif.org/. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
GenBank. 2025. GenBank Overview. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/. Accessed on 11 March 2025.
Hatooka K. 1986. Sexual dimorphism found in teeth of three species of moray eels. Japanese Journal of Ichthyology, 32(4): 379-386. https://doi.org/10.11369/jji1950.32.379
Huang WC, Balisco RA, Evacitas FC and Liao TY. 2023a. Description of a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from the Philippines, with a preliminary assessment of genetic and morphological variations of the Uropterygius concolor species complex. Journal of Fish Biology, 103(3): 593-602. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.15472
Huang WC, Chen HM and Liao TY. 2019. Revalidation of a moray eel, Gymnothorax mucifer Snyder, 1904 (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), with a revised distribution. Zootaxa, 4559(1): 151-165. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4559.1.6
Huang WC, Chen HM, Tseng YC and Liao TY. 2022a. Assessing phenovariant species pairs of moray eels: Hybridization, introgression, and morphology. Zoologica Scripta, 51(6): 676-694. https://doi.org/10.1111/zsc.12560
Huang WC, Hibino Y, Balisco RA and Liao TY. 2024. Description of a new uniformly brown estuarine moray eel (Anguilliformes, Muraenidae) from the Central Indo-Pacific Ocean. In: Ho HC, Russell B, Hibino Y and Lee MY (eds). Biodiversity and taxonomy of fishes in Taiwan and adjacent waters. ZooKeys, 1220: 15-34. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1220.129685
Huang WC, Liao TY and Tan HH. 2023b. Uropterygius cyamommatus, a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from anchialine caves in Christmas Island, Australia, and Panglao Island, the Philippines. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 71: 268-278. https://doi.org/10.26107/RBZ-2023-0021
Huang WC, Loh KH and Chen HM. 2022b. Gymnothorax poikilospilus, a new moray eel (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from Penghu Islands, western Taiwan. Zootaxa, 5189(1): 87-102. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5189.1.11
Huang WC, Smith DG, Loh KH and Liao TY. 2021. Two new moray eels of genera Diaphenchelys and Gymnothorax (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from Taiwan and the Philippines. Zoological Studies, 60: 24. https://doi.org/10.6620/ZS.2021.60-24
Kimura M. 1980. A simple method for estimating evolutionary rate of base substitutions through comparative studies of nucleotide sequences. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 16: 111-120. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01731581
Kumar S, Stecher G, Suleski M, Sanderford M, Sharma S and Tamura K. 2024. MEGA12: Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis version 12 for adaptive and green computing. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 41(12): msae263. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msae263
Mohapatra A, Smith DG, Mohanty SR, Mishra SS and Tudu PC. 2017. Enchelycore propinqua sp. nov., a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae: Muraeninae) from the Indian Coast. Zootaxa, 4319(3): 595-599. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4319.3.11
Myers RF. 1999. Micronesian reef fishes: a comprehensive guide to the coral reef fishes of Micronesia, 3rd revised and expanded edition. Coral Graphics, Barrigada, Guam, 330pp.
Myers RF, Burdick DR, Mundy BC, Lindfield SJ, Tibbatts B and Donaldson TJ. 2025. New and recent records of fishes from the Mariana Islands, western Pacific Ocean. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 42: 15-90. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14750902
Ratnasingham S, Wei C, Chan D, Agda J, Agda J, Ballesteros-Mejia L, Ait Boutou H, El Bastami ZM, Ma E, Manjunath R, et al. 2024. BOLD v4: A Centralized Bioinformatics Platform for DNA-Based Biodiversity Data. In: DeSalle R (ed). DNA barcoding: Methods and protocols. Springer US, New York, pp. 403-441. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3581-0_26
Reece JS, Bowen BW, Smith DG and Larson A. 2010. Molecular phylogenetics of moray eels (Muraenidae) demonstrates multiple origins of a shell-crushing jaw (Gymnomuraena, Echidna) and multiple colonizations of the Atlantic Ocean. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 57(2): 829-835. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2010.07.013
Shibukawa K, Takata Y and Shinohara G. 2007. First record of a rare moray, Enchelycore kamara (Actinopterygii: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), from Amami-oshima Island, Ryukyu Islands, Japan. Species Diversity, 12(3): 187-192. https://doi.org/10.12782/specdiv.12.187
Smith DG and Böhlke EB. 2022. Muraenidae. In: Heemstra PC, Heemstra E, Ebert DA, Holleman W and Randall JE (eds). Coastal fishes of the western Indian Ocean. Volume 2. South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Makhanda, pp. 37-79.
Smith DG, Bogorodsky SV, Mal AO and Alpermann TJ. 2019. Review of the moray eels (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) of the Red Sea, with description of a new species. Zootaxa, 4704(1): 1-87. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4704.1.1
Smith DG, Brokovich E and Einbinder S. 2008. Gymnothorax baranesi, a new moray eel (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae) from the Red Sea. Zootaxa, 1678(1): 63-68. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.1678.1.4
Smith DG. 2012. A checklist of the moray eels of the world (Teleostei: Anguilliformes: Muraenidae). Zootaxa, 3474(1): 1-64. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3474.1.1
Tamura K and Nei M. 1993. Estimation of the number of nucleotide substitutions in the control region of mitochondrial DNA in humans and chimpanzees. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 10: 512-526. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040023
Tang KL and Fielitz C. 2013. Phylogeny of moray eels (Anguilliformes: Muraenidae), with a revised classification of true eels (Teleostei: Elopomorpha: Anguilliformes). Mitochondrial DNA, 24(1): 55-66. https://doi.org/10.3109/19401736.2012.710226
Ward RD, Zemlak TS, Innes BH, Last PR and Hebert PD. 2005. DNA barcoding Australia’s fish species. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 360: 1847-1857. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1716
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