A Maryland woman was likely bitten by a moray eel off the coast of Hawaii on July 29, 2018. (iStock)
Posted on 08/06/2018 9:15:37 AM PDT by ETL
Kristen Porter was relaxing on a floatie at Kuhio Beach in Waikiki, Hawaii last week when she felt something sharp pierce her foot. Wincing in pain, Porter pulled her foot out of the water and saw a terrifying sight.
"I knew immediately that it was something bad, and it wasn't just like a fish nibble, so I pulled my foot into the air and there was blood everywhere," Porter, of Annapolis, Maryland, told KHON-TV on Thursday.
With help from her son and fellow beachgoers, Porter hobbled to shore to examine the mysterious wound. Once on land, a lifeguard observed several gashes on her foot, telling her the marks appeared to be consistent with an eel bite.
Porter initially thought it was a shark attack, though the International Shark File in Florida confirmed to KHON-TV days after the Sunday incident that wasn't the case.
Waikiki Aquarium director Andrew Rossiter, who examined photos of the injury, told KHON-TV he also believes it was an eel bite, though they're extremely rare — especially at Kuhio Beach, which isn't particularly rocky.
Rossiter determined the likely culprit was a moray eel, a snake-like fish that can reach up to a whopping 13 feet in length. Some moray eels can even weigh more than humans, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) described in a blog post.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Have 5-0 liase with HPD, Coast Guard, and the rest to seal off the rock until the eel is booked.
The smallest moray eel is probably Snyder's moray (Anarchias leucurus), which attains a maximum length of 11.5 cm (4.5 in),[3] while the longest species, the slender giant moray (Strophidon sathete) reaches up to 4 m (13 ft).[4]
The largest in terms of total mass is the giant moray (Gymnothorax javanicus), which reaches 3 m (9.8 ft) in length and 30 kg (66 lb) in weight.[5]
Anatomy:
The dorsal fin extends from just behind the head along the back and joins seamlessly with the caudal and anal fins. Most species lack pectoral and pelvic fins, adding to their serpentine appearance. Their eyes are rather small; morays rely mostly on their highly developed sense of smell, lying in wait to ambush prey.
The body is generally patterned. In some species, the inside of the mouth is also patterned. Their jaws are wide, framing a protruding snout. Most possess large teeth used to tear flesh or grasp slippery prey items. A relatively small number of species, for example the snowflake moray (Echidna nebulosa) and zebra moray (Gymnomuraena zebra), primarily feed on crustaceans and other hard-shelled animals, and they have blunt, molar-like teeth suitable for crushing.[8]
Morays secrete a protective mucus over their smooth, scaleless skin, which in some species contains a toxin. They have much thicker skin and high densities of goblet cells in the epidermis that allows mucus to be produced at a higher rate than in other eel species. This allows sand granules to adhere to the sides of their burrows in sand-dwelling morays,[9] thus making the walls of the burrow more permanent due to the glycosylation of mucins in mucus. Their small, circular gills, located on the flanks far posterior to the mouth, require the moray to maintain a gap to facilitate respiration.
Morays are carnivorous and feed primarily on smaller fish, octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and crustaceans. Groupers, barracudas and sea snakes are among their few predators. Commercial fisheries exist for several species, but some cause ciguatera fish poisoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moray_eel
Was it a rare and elusive Moose Eel?
In the ocean,YOU are part of the Food Chain, not the top of it..................
Holy cow, that’s fantastic!
Maybe she was related to Megyan Kelly...
An agent of Wo Fat.
LMAO.
eels are bad bad news man- they are the pit bulls of the sea- they inflict massive damage- and if the bite doesn’t get ya- infection from flesh eating bacteria in the sea will seep into the wound and be life threatening-
Brilliant.
good one
Went diving years ago at San Francisco reef in Cozumel. Our guide carried bits of fish with him to hand feed the moray eels and urge them out of their hiding places so we could see and photograph them. Definitely would not want to be bitten by one but they are pretty and graceful to observe.
...still ya swim with that cut
and the eel bites your butt..
you’re a moron...!
Outstanding!!! (I may well steal that...)
“Mama say that moray eels is ornery because they gots all ‘dem teeth and no toothbrush.” - B.B. 1998
When an eel bites your heel,
And that sting that you feel--
That's a moray!
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