Hand over some creature facts, please 🥺
For the longest time, no one knew how fresh water eels could reproduce, since the most accessible eels that wound up around Europe have no gonads upon dissection
However, it turns out that freshwater eels have a complex life cycle!
They live in freshwater as juveniles and adults, but migrate to saltwater to breed (not to be confused with already fully saltwater eels like morays)
Only then during this migration period do the reproductive organs start to develop, then they spawn and fertilize eggs externally (typically in the Sargasso Sea).
It’s hard to study because tracking these migrations is challenging and expensive and is only pretty exclusive for a short period of time
Historically, there have been various other theories on how eels reproduce that have been disproven eventually— here’s a brief list of ones that stood out to me!
– in ancient Egypt, it was thought eels were spawned from the sun warming the Nile
– Aristotle proposed that eels are spawned from mud and rainwater
– Pliny the Elder believed new eels developed from when an older eel rubs its skin off on rocks
– Scottish or English (correct me if I’m wrong about which theory is attributed to who) beliefs that they spawned from sea foam
-From horse hair that fell in the water
-or created when the sun rays fell on spring dew in lakeshores and riverbanks
Though we know now how they reproduce, I still find these older theories delightful :))
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