Serpent eel withdrawing into its hole. All photos Guido Zsilavecz
While known to occur in our area, this is a rare sighting. Since we first became aware of it in 2005, there have been a number of sightings by divers. SURG did not have luck, even though we searched, until on a recent night dive at Long Beach one was seen. The hole was quite small, a bit larger than a R5 coin, so the eel is quite small. It is also quite skittish, and as soon as we lit it up with our torches started withdrawing. They can grow to 2.5m, so this one was a true baby!
Smiths' Sea Fishes, MM Smith and PC Heemstra, 1986