Well I never. When I was in Thailand in 2005, there was much talk about “this one guy who got his thumb bitten off by a moray eel then had his toe grafted on where his thumb used to be”, whom several divers claimed to know. I took the story with a huge pinch of salt. Until yesterday, that is, when I met a professional dive photographer and mentioned the story. His reply: “look it up on YouTube”.
Thus I present: Why you should never touch anything when diving. (Warning, a trifle unpleasant.)
Ew! But honestly, what did he expect? They were practically teasing the eels, waving food and fingers in their faces. The thumb toe was pretty gross. I don’t know if I could handle having a toe for a thumb. What would you even call it? A thoe?
Neat clip.
Zero sympathy for dickhead diver.
Toe seems to work pretty well.
I am not a diver, I like to stay in an environment where I at least feel I am high on the food chain, but my more adventurous brother is a diver, and assures me any one who does anything with a Moray Eel other than to avoid it is asking for trouble.
From raz:
I had a girlfriend who in an industrial accident tried to stop a large vavle wheel from spinning. The spokes busted up both her thumbs really bad. They had to pin the bones back together. I can say with certainty that the loss of opposible digits is a big deal. Sure she adjusted, but something as simple as blow drying her hair took two hands. Fortunately it was a temporary condition and she recovered fully. After seeing the effect on her, I think I would learn to accept a toe as a thumb to gain the advantages of having an opposible digit. The thumb is probably the most important digit on the hand, unless you want to flip someone off, but even then you can thumb your nose at them. I don’t know what effect toeing your nose at someone might have, and as long as my toes are still attached to my feet, I am way too old and inflexible to find out!
I’ll say one thing in his favour: he illustrated a point for hopefully thousands of other divers, namely don’t be a dick and fuck around with the animals.
Oh, and he gave one eel a tasty treat.
My diving instructor’s rules went like this:
“If you wouldn’t put it in your mouth, don’t touch it with your hands. There are things down there far deadlier than up here and they WILL eat you if you piss them off.”
Wow. I was thinking “oh what a pratt”, because, it sort of reminded me of the usual stuff when one is very young and small, you know, “Celyn, do NOT stand there waiting for the seagull to come and take the bread from your finger … no you really should be very careful when approaching strange dogs” etc, (and I had the excuse of being about six years old) but I suppose I can see why it was so tempting to offer them nice eely munchy snacks just to get some good film. So, what would I know, never having been any where near eels. Bloody big eels. “Moray”, is it? Big enough to be Moray and Nairn and Inverness and Lochaber. 
He won’t forget that dive in a hurry. Not terribly sure it was nice of his friends to carry on filming as they did, but I suppose thumbless man got a pretty unusual souvenir film out of it. :eek:
I’m glad the toe-swapping thing worked out in the end though. I thought it quite fun that what he chose to do to exhibit the great working-ness of the new “thumb” was to play with the little game thing and to grab a bottle of beer.
Now, am I being VERY odd if I say that the whole business of teasing the eels by waving the snacks around reminded me somehow of a bit in the film"A Fish Called Wanda" when rather manic criminal guy (Kevin somebody) is upsetting the timid guy by waving chips around in the fish tank and hassling the fish? Only this time, the fish, well, eel, won, of course. (Almost a pity, really, 'cos if the bloke had bitten bits off the eel in stead of vice versa, they could all have broken into a jolly chorus of “eel meat again, don’t know where, don’t know when”).
And wherever he goes, people will wonder about it, 'cos it will stick out like a toe thumb.
(I’ll get my coat)
The best part of that video was how the food the diver kept offering to the eel was “thumb shaped” and he kept waggling it around to make it look even more like a finger. He was practically training it to tear off his finger.
I’m not sure the camera man was all that aware of exactly what was happening. He only seemed to get a glimpse of the eel with the hand in its mouth by chance.
Having said that, I think it is fairly natural for camera operators to keep on rolling when unexpected things are happening.
I guess it was pay back for us eating fish fingers.
I’ve seen a Moray at the Monterey Bay Aquarium at a distance of a couple of feet. No way would I put any of my appendages any where near its mouth.
My cousin’s son was born with a missing or severely malformed thumb. They replaced it with one of his toes while he was still an infant.
That’s a Moray.
Shoe shopping must be a bitch.
That’s precisely correct. There’s a film loop at the Museum of Science in Boston that they’ve been running forever about a guy who lost his thumb and had it replaced by a big toe. It’s apparently a common procedure, and has been going on for decades.
And, yes, they do call it a “thoe”.
In case you’re wondering, PADI (the largest dive training system in the world) trains its divers explicitely to not jack around with the animals, especially if they don’t know whether they’re harmless or not. (Of course, where I am, its mostly just sea lions that bite you just for their own amusement – it never breaks your wetsuit, either.)
Remember: eels don’t bite off thumbs; people with eels bite off thumbs!
Or something.
They can have my Moray Eel when they prise it from my cold, dead thumb.
“See the thing in the reef with the big ugly teeth
That’s a mor-ay…
Stick your hand in the crack and you won’t get it back
That’s a mor-ay…”
with my most sincere apologies to The Barefoot Man