{"id":14649,"date":"2024-10-22T01:03:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T05:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/spotted-garden-eel\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T00:02:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T05:02:27","slug":"spotted-garden-eel","status":"publish","type":"species","link":"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/spotted-garden-eel\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotted garden eel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baby spotted garden eels are solid black. As they mature, they turn white in color with three black spots down the sides of their bodies. They use their tails to dig holes into sand and their body mucus to cement the sand together, creating a solid structure for their burrows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14650,"template":"","class_list":["post-14649","species","type-species","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSpotted garden eel | Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/spotted-garden-eel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spotted garden eel | Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Baby spotted garden eels are solid black. As they mature, they turn white in color with three black spots down the sides of their bodies. 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