Galapagos Garden Eels – An Extremely Shy Resident in Cocos Island, Costa Rica

A Carpet of Galapagos Garden Eel with a passing Spotted Eagle Ray. Photo courtesy from Shutterstock

Galapagos Garden Eel (Heteroconger klausewitzi)

Max. Length: 70 centimeters
Length at 1st Maturity: 39.1centimeters
a value:
b value:
Depth Range: 10 – 30 meters (30 – 100 feet)
Frequency: Abundant in Eastern Pacific Ocean

Photo courtesy from www.nicerweb.com

Unlike other fish species in Cocos Island where you can see them freely swimming in the water column, garden eels are highly territorial and non-migratory where you can see them half exposed in the sandy bottom.  So with this, there’s only thing to do if want to see this elusive creature: you need to descend and touch down at the seafloor.

Aside from being clustered together looking like algal protrusions in the sand, you can easily identify a galapagos garden eel through its half exposed body where you can clearly see that their lateral line scales are embedded with white circular spots. In most instances, you can see them facing the flow of tide where they are feeding from microscopic plankton which is very abundant in Cocos Island.

Extremely Shy

If you have been diving in Cocos Island, you will probably know by now that garden eels are extremely shy with our presence. You will notice that when you are still far away from their lair, they are extending their bodies out of the sandy bottom. But as you come closer, they will slowly start to retreat back in their hiding holes and will completely retreat as soon as you are very near to them.

Observe in Stealth

While garden eels are extremely shy, there is a technique where you can have a close observation with garden eels which can become very useful especially if you are doing underwater photography.

Photo courtesy from galapagosdive.wordpress.com

Once you see a carpet of garden eels, you need to start your approach from a distance and in a slow manner. After then, you can slowly progress your entry by staying close to the reef without doing any unnecessary movement.

When you are a few meters away from a garden eels lair, you have to control the motion of your fins which is responsible for your underwater motion. You can do this in such a way that you make a controlled kick while gliding slowly over the carpet of garden eels. You may not get this for this time, but as the saying goes: practice makes perfect. And this is the reason why the videographer (on the video below) was able to take some good shots of garden eels at close range. Further, this principle is also the reason why a spotted eagle ray is gently passing over these extremely shy resident of Cocos Island.

Reference

Fishbase: www.fishbase.org

IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species: www.iucnredlist.org

Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org

Video courtesy from Trek Dig Media

About Tristan Paylado
Tristan is a marine biologist and a CMAS 2-Star Dive Instructor
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