Puhi lau milo is a 4-foot-long, beautiful moray eel that hides in the reef during the day and comes out to feed at night. If you have done a snorkel in Hawai‘i over a shallow lava and coral reef you probably have gone right over one of these morays, as they are quite common but rarely ever seen during the day.
They are called the undulated moray due to their pattern of undulating stripes. They have a mouth full of giant, super-sharp teeth! When people snorkel at night and see one of these scary-looking eels for the first time, they often panic when they see the huge open mouth and sharp teeth only a foot away from their face mask.
Moray eels keep their mouth open so they can breath, and it is super rare for a moray to bite a person, but from time to time it happens. Puhi lau milo likes to hunt lobster on the shallow reef at night. They bite the lobster using their long teeth, then swallow the lobster whole.
Divers that like to catch lobster at night often run into these morays, and sometimes get bit by the eels. When you grab a lobster, it make a squeaking noise, and this is what attracts the undulated moray.
The eel will sometimes bite a diver’s hand if they are holding a squeaking lobster, and this can be quite dangerous.
There is an old Hawaiian saying that goes like this: “If you put your hand in a crack and don’t get it back, it’s a moray.” I got attacked by a huge, four-foot-long puhi lau milo at night in only three foot deep of water at ‘Anini Beach on Kaua‘i.
I was laying on the bottom shooting video of a lobster in a crack close up when the moray came zooming out of the same crack and bit my camera housing. It was so fast I did not at first know what had happened until I reviewed the footage later on. The eel left teeth marks on the front of my metal camera housing. I was just happy it bit the housing and not my head!
You can see puhi lau milo in action up on my web in my free underwater educational movie series at www.underwater2web.com and my YouTube at Underwater2web. Check out my night movie I shot on the reef here in Hawai‘i and you can see up close the large, crazy sharp teeth of the undulated moray eel from the safety of your own home.
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Terry Lilley is a marine biologist living in Hanalei. He is co-founder of Reef Guardians Hawai‘i, a nonprofit on a mission to provide education and resources to protect the coral reef. To donate to Reef Guardians Hawaii go to www.reefguardianshawaii.org.
