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Galapagos snake eel

species of fish

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 28, 2025
Entity authorityQ1945865 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Galapagos snake eel (Quassiremus evionthas) is an eel in the family Ophichthidae (worm/snake eels). It was described by David Starr Jordan and Charles Harvey Bollman in 1890. It is a marine, tropical eel which is known from the eastern central and southeastern Pacific Ocean, including Colombia, the Gulf of California, Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, and Clarion Island in the Revillagigedo Archipelago in Mexico. It dwells at a depth range of 3 to 80 metres (9.8 to 262.5 ft), and inhabits reefs, preferring to live in areas bearing a mixture of boulders, gravel and sand. Males can reach a maximum total length of 71 centimetres (28 in).

The IUCN redlist currently lists the Galapagos snake eel as Vulnerable under Criterion D2, in lieu of the potential threat to population levels for shallow-water fish in the eastern tropical Pacific, caused by longer and more frequent ENSO events. No conservation actions have been taken specifically for the species, although it occurs in the Marine Protected Areas of the Galapagos, Cocos and Malpelo Island.

Editorial summary

“Galapagos snake eel” enters the record as species of fish. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Galapagos, snake and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewUseful for establishing the present vocabulary of the subject while preserving a route back to the evidence on which that vocabulary rests. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1890—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Galapagos, snake and species.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Galapagos snake eel” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Galapagos, snake and species provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1945865. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1890.

Critical limits

Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Galapagos snake eel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.