North Hawaii Dive Adventures

Yellow Margin Eel attacks and eats a smaller Whitemouth Moray

This video was shot by myself (Jeff Sims) and Jackson Seay on October 12 2007. We were diving at Puako off of House 20 hanging out near the bottom of the coral wall at about 100'. We started a slow ascent when I looked over at a large rock that sort of just jumped up on its own. I went over to check it out when this eel lunges out from the rock and was trying to get away. At this point I still wasn't sure what was going on.

I thought maybe that the rock had just fallen and landed on the eel. I quickly realized what was going on when I looked at the bottom of the rock to see a larger eel biting on the one that was now starting to thrash around back and forth. My buddy Jackson was noticing this also and we both started to work on our cameras to get something on video. We both got video of parts of this and watched the whole thing until the Yellow Margin Eel gulped down the poor smaller Whitemouth and turned and swam away. Another large Whitemouth Moray also was very interested in this whole event and watched it unfold with us and got bumped by the Yellow Margin eel as he made his getaway.

I spliced Jacksons video and my own together to try to get a more complete picture. It was much more exciting in person but I hope you enjoy the video.

Comments are Welcome!