- Animals
- ›Chordates
- ›Vertebrates
- ›Ray-finned Fishes
- ›Tarpons, Eels, and Allies
- ›True Eels
- ›Synaphobranchoidei
Cutthroat Eels
Synaphobranchidae
Cutthroat eels are a family, Synaphobranchidae, of eels, the only members of the suborder Synaphobranchoidei. They are found worldwide in temperate and tropical seas.
Cutthroat eels range from 23 to 160 cm (9.1 to 63.0 in) in length. They are bottom-dwelling fish, found in deep waters down to about 3,700 m (12,100 ft). They are distinguished by the presence of telescopic eyes in the larvae. In some classifications (for example, ITIS), this family is split, with Simenchelys in its own family, the Simenchelyidae.
3 branches of this family, most-observed first · about 55 known species
Typical Cutthroat Eels
subfamilySynaphobranchinae
Arrowtooth Eels
subfamilyIlyophinae
Pugnose Parasitic Eels
subfamilySimenchelyinae
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Synaphobranchidae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 86094.