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Spotted Garden Eel (Heteroconger hassi) in the Tennessee Aquarium's Scuttlebutt Reef gallery.

Spotted Garden Eel

Fish / Heteroconger hassi

On Exhibit

NOW OPEN: Scuttlebutt Reef

Swaying together on the seafloor, a colony of Spotted Garden Eels can be easily mistaken for a growth of seagrasses. Using their stiff, muscular tails, they dig burrows in the ocean bottom reinforced by a cement-like mucus they secrete. Garden eels feed on zooplankton brought to them by the current, but when alarmed, they quickly retreat — tail-first — into their holes.