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A Giant moray eel emerges from the coral on The Little Rose Garden reef. Our books showed this moray to be called "Giant moray" but the divemasters insisted it was called a Javanese moray. Marine Life of the Pacific and Indian Oceans lists the scientific name as Gymnothorax javanicus and says they lack scales and pectoral fins and have only one gill opening on each side of the head. It also mentions that the Giant moray is "the most commonly encountered and largest species." Either way, there were many of them in the area. In fact, we only saw one other species of eel, the smaller whitemouth eel. The Giant moray might run to five feet long or better. The divemaster could occasionally coax them out of their coral cover. They were beautifully marked along their broad bodies.
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