Snowflake Moray Identification Guide

Key identification features

• Pale cream to white body covered in irregular large dark blotches and smaller spots, creating a snowflake or giraffe-like pattern
• Blunt, rounded snout and a relatively small head compared to more elongated morays
• Rounded, blunt, molar-like teeth rather than sharp fangs, adapted for crushing hard-shelled prey
• Rounded tail tip rather than a pointed one, distinguishing it from many other reef morays
• Moderate size, typically reaching under 1 m, smaller than many Indo-Pacific reef morays

Common look-alikes

• Zebra moray: shows narrow, evenly spaced vertical bands rather than the snowflake moray's irregular blotches, and lacks the interspersed smaller spots
• Chain moray: displays a chain-link pattern of connected pale ovals on a dark background, essentially the reverse contrast of the snowflake moray's dark blotches on a pale body
• Honeycomb moray: has a regular hexagonal spot pattern rather than the irregular, variably sized blotches and spots of the snowflake moray

Where you'll see one

Snowflake morays inhabit shallow reef flats, tide pools, and rubble zones throughout the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to Hawaii, often found in very shallow water where they hunt crabs and shrimp at night.