Jaws II
Most bony fishes capture their prey by sucking in their victims and then processing them with a second set of jaws lying deep within their throat. However, this is not the case for the predatory moray eel (Muraena retifera), which launches its second jaws forward into its mouth in order to seize its unwitting prey.

Despite the moray eel’s predominance as the top predator of many coral reef systems, its feeding mechanisms had remained poorly understood. As a result of its characteristically long and narrow body, it is unable to rely on the conventional suction mechanism used by most bony fishes. Rita Mehta and Peter Wainwright report their finding that moray eels have an extremely mobile set of jaws in their throat that project forward into the mouth and grasp their prey, a feat made possible by elongation of the muscles controlling the jaws, coupled with the reduction of adjacent gill-arch structures. These second jaws then take the prey back into the throat.

This remarkable innovation may have contributed to the success of moray eels as reef predators, allowing them to live in confined spaces while retaining the ability to feed on large fish and cephalopods.

CONTACT
Rita Mehta (University of California, Davis, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 530 752 6784; E-mail: rsmehta@ucdavis.edu