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Old 03-26-2002, 04:33 PM   #8
Fish_Eye
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: North Kingstown, RI
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I'M BACK... and here is a close up look at an eel in a fish trap.



These american eels make the opposite run as do herring, the adults go to sea to spawn in the Sargasso Sea, just like the conger eels do

The American eel (Anguilla rostrata). Eels are scavengers and eat virtually anything dead or alive. For many years scientists were baffled as to their breeding habits. It was known that females lived for the most part in freshwater and males in brackish or estuarine waters. It was surmised that they bred in the ocean but little more was known.

In the early 1950's, scientists determined that a fish known as "leptocephalus" was not a new species at all but a larval stage of the eel. They then traced the eels' spawning grounds by finding smaller and smaller larvae until they reached an area called the Sargasso Sea. Evidence indicated that mature American eels (between the ages of five and twenty years) make the pilgrimage to the Sargasso Sea, spawn and die. The fact that a spent eel (an eel that has spawned) has never been found supports the theory that the Sargasso Sea is the last stop in the life of the American eel. After the eggs hatch, the clear leptocephalus drift with the Gulf Stream toward shore where eventually they change into elvers or "glass eels" and begin to swim into estuaries or further into lakes and streams depending upon their sex.

Last edited by JohnR; 06-07-2006 at 09:21 PM..

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