Showing Food Freshwater eel

General Information

Name

Freshwater eel

Scientific Name

Anguilla

Description

The Anguillidae are a family of fishes that contains the freshwater eels. The 19 species and six subspecies in this family are all in genus Anguilla. They are catadromous, meaning they spend their lives in freshwater rivers, lakes, or estuaries, and return to the ocean to spawn. The young eel larvae, called leptocephali, live only in the ocean and consume small particles called marine snow. They grow larger in size, and in their next growth stage they are called glass eels. At this stage they enter estuaries, and when they become pigmented they are known as elvers. Elvers travel upstream in freshwater rivers, where they grow to adulthood. Some details of eel reproduction are as yet unknown, and the discovery of the spawning area of the American and European eels in the Sargasso Sea is one of the more famous anecdotes in the history of Ichthyology (see Eel life history). The spawning areas of some other anguillid eels, such as the Japanese eel, and the giant mottled eel were also discovered recently in the western North Pacific Ocean.

Primary ID

FOOD00357

Picture