Heteroconger mercyae, Mercy's garden eel

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Heteroconger mercyae Allen & Erdmann, 2009

Mercy's garden eel
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Native range | All suitable habitat | Point map | Year 2050
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Heteroconger mercyae   AquaMaps   Data sources: GBIF OBIS
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Image of Heteroconger mercyae (Mercy\
Heteroconger mercyae
Picture by Erdmann, M.V.

Classification / Names Common names | Synonyms | Catalog of Fishes(genus, species) | ITIS | CoL | WoRMS | Cloffa

Teleostei (teleosts) > Anguilliformes (Eels and morays) > Congridae (Conger and garden eels) > Heterocongrinae
Etymology: Heteroconger: Greek, heteros = other + Latin, conger = conger (Ref. 45335);  mercyae: Named for Mercy Paine, who discovered the eel colony and helped us collect the type specimens..

Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range Ecology

Marine; reef-associated; depth range 4 - 10 m (Ref. 90102). Tropical

Distribution Countries | FAO areas | Ecosystems | Occurrences | Point map | Introductions | Faunafri

Western Pacific: Philippines, Indonesia (Kaiman, West Papua), but likely to occur as far east as Rabaul, New Britain (based on an underwater photo).

Size / Weight / Age

Maturity: Lm ?  range ? - ? cm
Max length : 67.8 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 82435)

Short description Morphology | Morphometrics

Dorsal soft rays (total): 578-629; Anal soft rays: 390 - 432; Vertebrae: 204 - 213. This relatively slender species has the following distinct set of characters: dorsal-fin origin anterior to gill opening; with pterygoid teeth; body depth at gill opening 28.8-35.2% of HL; preanal vertebrae 62-71 (mean = 65), total vertebrae 204-213 (mean 207.4) ; preanal lateral-line pores 63-69; body colouration consisting of zebra-like black and white barring on head grading to complex black and white maze pattern on body (Ref. 82435).

Biology     Glossary (e.g. epibenthic)

Collected from a single colony, occupying about 100 sq. m with approximately 50 eels at 5-6 m depth. The bottom is fine, silty sand and influenced by a freshwater stream along the adjacent shoreline, about 100 m distance, with the nearest reef formation about 50 m from the site (Ref. 82435).

Life cycle and mating behavior Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae

Main reference Upload your references | References | Coordinator | Collaborators

Allen, G.R. and M.V. Erdmann, 2009. Heteroconger mercyae, a new species of garden eel (Congridae: Heterocongrinae) from West Papua, Indonesia. aqua, Int. J. Ichthyol. 15(3):135-142. (Ref. 82435)

IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435)

  Least Concern (LC) ; Date assessed: 06 November 2011

CITES

Not Evaluated

CMS (Ref. 116361)

Not Evaluated

Threat to humans

  Harmless





Human uses

FAO - Publication: search | FishSource |

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Internet sources

AFORO (otoliths) | Aquatic Commons | BHL | Cloffa | BOLDSystems | Websites from users | Check FishWatcher | CISTI | Catalog of Fishes: genus, species | DiscoverLife | ECOTOX | FAO - Publication: search | Faunafri | Fishipedia | Fishtrace | GenBank: genome, nucleotide | GloBI | Google Books | Google Scholar | Google | IGFA World Record | MitoFish | Otolith Atlas of Taiwan Fishes | PubMed | Reef Life Survey | Socotra Atlas | Tree of Life | Wikipedia: Go, Search | World Records Freshwater Fishing | Zoobank | Zoological Record

Estimates based on models

Preferred temperature (Ref. 123201): 28.1 - 29.2, mean 28.8 °C (based on 246 cells).
Phylogenetic diversity index (Ref. 82804):  PD50 = 0.5000   [Uniqueness, from 0.5 = low to 2.0 = high].
Bayesian length-weight: a=0.00102 (0.00046 - 0.00225), b=3.06 (2.88 - 3.24), in cm total length, based on all LWR estimates for this body shape (Ref. 93245).
Trophic level (Ref. 69278):  3.4   ±0.4 se; based on size and trophs of closest relatives
Resilience (Ref. 120179):  Medium, minimum population doubling time 1.4 - 4.4 years (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Fishing Vulnerability (Ref. 59153):  Moderate to high vulnerability (47 of 100).