That's a moray.
This video documenting a professional diver's unlikely friendship with a moray eel is so oddly heartwarming, I may have to stop eating sushi made with eel. At the very least, I'll ask the waiter if the fish happened to be from Indonesia and had a friend named Valerie.
That would be Valerie Taylor, who first met "Honey" the eel back in 1974 while diving near Banda Island, Indonesia. She began feeding the curious fish other fish and over time the two developed a bond. Valerie says that after a few years of regular visits, as soon as Honey spotted her diver pal, she would swim out of her cave to greet her, and the two would cuddle.
The footage was shot years ago, but was just recently posted to Youtube, where it caught the attention of animal lovers and fans of oddball friendships around the world.
Sure, a lot of us would act friendly towards anyone who regularly came by with fresh fish and rubbed the back of our necks, but considering that a moray eel is more likely to take a chunk of a human than cuddle with them, it's pretty cool.
(by Jonathan Corbett)