The grey cutthroat eel, ''Synaphobranchus affinis'', is a

cutthroat eel 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 in length. They are bottom-dwelling fish, found in ...

. It was originally described by

Albert Günther Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther FRS, also Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther (3 October 1830 – 1 February 1914), was a German-born British zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Günther is ranked the second-most productive re ...

in 1877. It lives a benthic lifestyle, inhabiting the

continental slope A continental margin is the outer edge of continental crust abutting oceanic crust under coastal waters. It is one of the three major zones of the ocean floor, the other two being deep-ocean basins and mid-ocean ridges. The continental margin ...

and global deep waters including near Portugal, Canary Islands, Morocco, Japan, Australia, and others. Sulak, K. J. and Yu. N. Shcherbachev, 1997 ef. 22986''Zoogeography and systematics of six deep-living genera of synaphobranchid eels, with a key to taxa and description of two new species of Ilyophis. Bulletin of Marine Science v. 60 (no. 3): 1158-1194.'' It is a marine, deep water-dwelling eel which has been found at depths ranging from 300 to 2300 meters (1000 to 7500 ft) and at temperatures ranging from 3.3 - 11.3° C . Males can grow to a length of up to 110 centimeters (43 in). It is primarily a scavenger, however it also actively hunts small fish and crustaceans. The grey cutthroat eel (''Synaphobranchus affinis)'' is commonly mistaken with

Kaup's arrowtooth eel The Kaup's arrowtooth eel (''Synaphobranchus kaupii'', also known as the Kaup's cut-throat eel, the Gray's cutthroat, the Longnosed eel, the Northern cutthroat eel, or the Slatjaw cutthroat eel) is an eel in the family Synaphobranchidae (cutthroa ...

(''Synaphobranchus kaupii'') due to their morphological similarities. The primary method of differentiation between the two is by analyzing vertebral count, dorsal fin rays, and anal fin rays.

References

* Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2011). "Synaphobranchus affinis" in FishBase. June 2011 version. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1038967 Synaphobranchidae Fish described in 1877 Taxa named by Albert Günther