Eel - this fish looks like a snake at first glance, and therefore in many places it is not even considered a fish and is not eaten. The eel has a very long body, almost completely cylindrical in shape, only the tail is slightly pressed from the sides. Its head is small and slightly flattened in front. According to the nose of an eel (sometimes more or less long and wide), some zoologists divide eels into several types. The upper jaw of the eel is slightly shorter than the lower, both of them are covered with small and sharp teeth. It has small yellowish-silvery eyes, and the gill openings are very narrow and quite far removed from the occiput, as a result of which the gill covers do not completely cover the gill cavity. The anal and dorsal fins are very long and merge into one single fin along with the tail. Looking at an eel, it seems that his body is naked, but this is not so, if you remove a thick layer of mucus covering it from it, you can see the smallest, very strongly elongated scales covering its entire body. The color of the eel varies greatly and is sometimes bluish-black, sometimes dark green, but the belly is always either bluish-gray or yellow-white.

The spread of eel.

Eel is most common in the rivers of the Mediterranean Baltic and German Seas. In addition, it is found in large quantities in southwestern Finland, in the St. Petersburg, Baltic and some northwestern provinces, as well as in Poland. In addition to rivers, the eel lives in many large lakes- Onega, Ladoga and Peipsi, of which it enters Lake Pskov. From the Baltic basin, through canals, it entered the rivers of the Caspian and Black Seas. There are very few of them in the Volga. Only in some rivers that flow into the upper Volga, eels are much more common. Occasionally, eels are found in the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester. They most likely got into the Dnieper basin from the Neman through the Pinsk swamps.

Habitats in the reservoir and habits of the eel.

The eel prefers places with muddy or clay soil, and avoids places with sandy or rocky bottoms. In summer, he very often crawls between reeds and sedge. For example, a lot of eels are caught along the southern shore of the Kronstadt Bay in the reeds near the shore of the Sergius Monastery and beyond Oranienbaum. It should be noted that the eel is in motion only at night, during the day he prefers to lie down at rest. Similarly, in winter, at least on the north side, the eel is immobile and burrows into the mud.
In many places, starting from May and throughout the summer, the course of the eel begins. During this time he did not have a permanent home. Eels that don't breed don't leave the lakes they live in.
The eel sticks to deep and quiet places. With a high rise in water, it is often found in coastal whirlpools in which it digs even during the day. He searches for food mainly at night at the bottom, and during the day he digs into the silt, goes under the roots of coastal trees, hides under stones, etc. Based on Terletsky's experiments, eels can crawl from a reservoir to a reservoir, and for decent distances.
The experiment was carried out at dawn, in the evening and at night, on moist soil. Terletsky carried the eels to fairly considerable distances, and gave them freedom. That hour, the eels crawled freely, initially in different directions, but soon they turned towards the river and moved towards it in a more or less direct direction. They changed the road only when they met with sand or a naked snake. Once on a sloping area going to the river, they accelerated significantly. Two, three or more hours an eel can freely stay without water.
A caught eel, like a burbot, is very difficult to hold in your hands, as it is richly covered with mucus, strong and very resourceful. It is also quite difficult to kill him, sometimes it seems that the wound inflicted on him is very critical, but in fact it is not fatal for him. Only breaking his spine, he dies pretty quickly. In an eel, muscle contractility is reduced even if a piece is cut off from it.

Eel nutrition.

The eel is a carnivorous fish, it feeds on both fish and their eggs, as well as various crustaceans, worms, snails and larvae. Of the fish, those that walk along the bottom of the reservoir, such as sculpins and lampreys, are most often its prey, although it also eats other fish that it can catch, and therefore it often falls into the line.
In spring and early summer, when almost all cyprinids begin to spawn, eels eat this caviar with pleasure, destroying huge amounts of it. By the end of summer and autumn, crustaceans become the main food of the eel.

Reproduction of eel and its development.

For reproduction, the eel goes to the sea, and looks for places with a temperature of 16-17 degrees, and after spawning it dies. Its eggs are about 1 mm in size, one female is able to sweep up to 500 thousand of them. Larvae hatch from the eggs, which resemble a willow leaf. The body of the larvae is translucent, and only its eyes are clearly visible, they are painted black. Eel larvae are very different from adults, so for some time they were considered a separate species of fish. Having reached about 8 cm in length and 1 cm in height, the larvae stop feeding, and decrease in size to 5-6 cm, turning into a glass eel. It still remains transparent, but its body is already becoming oval from the sides and taking on a snake-like shape. Now they head to the mouths of the rivers, rise upstream and acquire adult coloration.

Eel - this wonderful fish at first glance resembles a snake, and therefore in many places we do not even consider it a fish and are not eaten. The long body of the eel is almost perfectly cylindrical, only the tail is slightly laterally compressed, especially towards the end. His head is small, slightly flattened in front, with a more or less long and wide nose, as a result of which other zoologists distinguish several types of eels.

Both jaws, of which the lower one is slightly longer than the upper one, are seated (also the arthropod) with small, sharp teeth; the yellowish-silvery eyes are very small, the gill openings are very narrow and moved a considerable distance from the occiput, as a result of which the gill covers do not completely cover the gill cavity.

The dorsal and anal fins are very long and, together with the caudal fin, merge into one inseparable fin, bordering the entire rear half of the body in a circle. The soft rays of the fins are generally covered with rather thick skin and, as a result, are hardly distinguishable. At first glance, the eel seems to be naked, but if you remove the thick layer of mucus that covers it, it turns out that its body is seated with small, delicate, very oblong scales, which, however, for the most part do not touch and are generally located very irregularly.

The color of the eel varies considerably - and sometimes dark green, sometimes bluish-black; the belly, however, is always yellowish-white or bluish-gray. The real location of the eel is the rivers of the Baltic, Mediterranean and German seas. In our country, this fish is found in large numbers only in southwestern Finland, in the St. Petersburg, Baltic, and some northwestern bays. (even, according to my information, in the Smolensk province., It is in the Belaya River, a tributary Western Dvina) and in Poland.

In addition to rivers, the eel lives in many large lakes - Ladoga, Onega and Peipsi, from which it enters the shallow Pskov Lake. In Ilmen, however, it is not. From the waters of the Baltic Basin, the eel probably penetrated through canals into the rivers of the Black and Caspian Seas in this century, but it is still very rare here. Only single specimens occasionally reach the Volga, as prof.

Kessler from fishermen in Vyshny Volochek, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl and Yuryevets, but they do not breed in it; they are probably often confused here with river lampreys. According to O. A. Grimm, eels sometimes reach Saratov, but in any case they are a very rare occurrence in the Volga and are unlikely to reach the Caspian Sea.

Only in some rivers flowing into the upper Volga, eels come across quite often, namely in Tvertsa, where they probably got from Lake. Mstino, but recent times they disappeared from this river as well. In the same way, only individual, so to speak, lost individuals are occasionally seen in the Dnieper, Dniester and Danube, but, apparently, from ancient times, since even Guldenshtedt (in the last century) says that the eel is located in the river. Ostra (in the left tributary of the Desna), near Nizhyn.

Probably, it got into the Dnieper basin from the Neman through the Pinsk swamps, and indeed the upper reaches of the Black Sea and Baltic basins are close to each other and, moreover, are connected by canals. Kyiv fishermen sometimes find eels in the stomach of large catfish and believe that they must be found not far from Kyiv - in the Dnieper or Pripyat; Mogilev fishermen also claimed prof. Kessler that the eel comes across occasionally in the Dniester.

Finally, in the seventies, K.K. Pengo was delivered an eel, already caught in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov near the Petrovsky village. As for the presence of eels in the Danube, in the spring of 1890, the fishermen's society in Galati sent over half a million young eels from Altona in Schleswig, which were released into the Danube, on the Romanian coast.

In all likelihood, eels are quite acclimatized here and will breed (in the sea). River eel, - says Prof. Kessler, - is not a completely freshwater fish, but rather a migratory fish, since it does not spend its entire life in fresh waters, but periodically leaves them for the sea. However, there is an important difference between the eel and other anadromous fish.

The fact is that all other anadromous fish, as far as we know, grow up in the sea and rise from there up the rivers to throw eggs, while the eel, on the contrary, in young age keeps in fresh water and then for spawning goes down the rivers to the sea.

When the eel wanders along the rivers, neither rapids nor waterfalls can stop it. So, for example, the high Narva waterfall, which serves as an insurmountable barrier for salmon, does not at all constitute a similar barrier for eels. It is not known, however, with accuracy how the eel gets over the steep waterfalls it meets, like the Narva one, especially since it cannot make high jumps.

In all likelihood, he bypasses them, crawling over wet coastal rocks; at least it is true that he knows how to crawl very dexterously on wet ground and can live out of water for up to half a day or more. The reason for the survivability of the eel out of water is that the gill leaves, due to the elongated shape of the gill cavity and the narrowness of the gill openings, remain moist for a very long time, capable of supporting the respiration process.

The eel prefers to adhere to waters with clay or muddy soil and, on the contrary, if possible, avoids rivers and lakes, which have a sandy or rocky bottom. In particular, he likes to rotate between sedge and reeds in summer. So, for example, a very significant eel fishing is carried out along the southern coast of the Kronstadt Bay, in those reeds that humiliate the coast near the Sergius Monastery, and beyond Oranienbaum.

Here, fishermen distinguish two varieties of it - running eel and herbalist (sedentary). Fishermen lay clearings or paths in the reeds, on which they set up fences for eels. It should, however, be noted that the eel is in motion only at night, while during the day it remains at rest - "lies in the mud, curled up like a rope," in the words of our fishermen.

In the same way, in winter, at least in our northern side, the eel remains motionless and burrows into the mud, according to Ekshtrem, to a depth of 46 cm. in mud, crustaceans, worms, larvae, snails (Lumnaeus).

Of the fish most often given to him as prey are those that, like him, rotate more along the bottom of the reservoir, such as sculpins and lampreys; but, by the way, he also catches all kinds of other fish that he can catch, and therefore often falls on the hooks of the lines baited by the fishermen. I once happened to find in the stomach of a large eel the remains of a small chub, along with a hook, on which, probably, the fish was impaled, when the eel grabbed it and swallowed it.

In spring and early summer, when almost all cyprinids spawn, the eel preferentially feeds on this caviar and exterminates a huge number. By the end of summer and autumn in the Kronstadt Bay, its main food is crustaceans, sharp-tailed idothea (Idothea entomon), which are known to fishermen as sea cockroaches. A very remarkable property of the eel is that, when caught and planted in a tight cage, it vomits out of the stomach a significant part of the food that has not yet had time to be digested, especially if the stomach is tightly stuffed with it.

So, for example, he sometimes vomits whole snails, crustaceans, lampreys through his mouth. There is almost no way to hold a caught eel in your hands, as it is slippery, strong and dodgy. If you put it on the ground, then it moves along it quite quickly, forward or backward, depending on the need, and bends the body completely snake-like.

It is quite difficult to kill an eel: the most terrible wounds are often not fatal for him. Only if you break his spinal column, then he dies relatively soon. In addition, muscle contractility is preserved for a very long time even in cut pieces of eel. I happened to observe the correct movements of the lower jaw, the alternate opening and closing of the mouth in the severed head of an eel for more than a quarter of an hour.

The clerk of a fish farm in St. Petersburg assured me that the surest way to quickly kill an eel was to immerse it in salt water, but experience did not justify this assurance; the eel, which I placed in a strong saline solution, remained alive for more than two hours. Some interesting information about the eel from Russian authors are given by Terletsky, who observed it in the basin of the Western Dvina.

According to him, the eel lives here in many lakes, from which, along rivers, streams, even overland, it passes into big rivers and rolls down to spawn in the sea. Its course begins in May and continues all summer. During this time, he does not have a permanent home, but migrates from place to place. Idle eels, that is, those that do not breed this year, do not leave the lakes in which they live, and although they travel in rivers, but only for a certain distance.

In ordinary water levels, the eel adheres to places deep, quiet, with a muddy, grassy or sandy bottom. With a high rise in water, it often occurs in coastal whirlpools, in which it crawls and digs even during the day. It searches for food mostly at night at the bottom, and for the day it digs into the silt, crawls under the roots of coastal trees, under stones, etc.

Most interesting are the experiments of Terletsky, proving that eels can crawl from one reservoir to another overland for 0.5 km or more. He kept eels in a special pool, on a stream, and from here carried them to a fairly considerable distance, even half a verst, and gave them freedom. The experiments were carried out at dawn, in the evening and at night, on moist soil.

Immediately, the eels, bending ring-shaped like snakes, crawled quite freely and quite quickly, at first in different directions, but then soon turned towards the river and headed towards it in a more or less direct direction. They changed their path only when they encountered sand or bare earth, which they diligently avoided. Once on the square, sloping towards the river, they intensified to speed up their pace and, apparently, were in a hurry to get to their native element as soon as possible.

Two, three or even more hours eel can freely stay out of the water on a warm day. May roam on land from evening until sunrise, especially if the night is dewy. Until recently, the reproduction of eels has remained very obscure, and even to this day it has not yet been fully investigated, which, of course, depends on the fact that the eel goes to sea for this purpose. (The Danish ichthyologist Schmidt in the 1920s and other researchers established exactly where, how and when the eel spawns.)

Under ordinary conditions, the eel grows rather slowly, not earlier than in the fifth or sixth year of life it reaches a length of 107 cm, but, however, continues to grow for a very long time, so that sometimes there are individuals that are up to 180 cm long and are thicker than a human hand. According to Kessler's observations, an eel, which is 47 cm long, weighs about 800 g, and an eel 98 cm long weighs about 1.5 kg; in addition, there are indications that an eel 122 cm tall weighs from 3 to 4 kg, and therefore it must be assumed that the largest eels should weigh at least 8 kg.

There is almost no information about the fishing of eels in Russia, i.e., in the waters belonging to the Baltic basin. It is only known that eels are caught with a bait both in the Neva and in many areas of the Ostsee, Privislyansk lips. and in the northwestern region. We only know, according to Terletsky, that the biting of the eel in the Western Dvina begins in June, when the eel takes well on the bottom rods, and that the bite, at first quiet and inconspicuous, turns into a strong swing of the rod. The most complete information about zander and bersh fish is located -

In Western Europe, the fishing of this fish is very common and is carried out in quite a variety of ways, some of which, no doubt, can be used by Western Russian fishermen. For this reason, and also because of the lack of information about eel fishing in Russia, I find it necessary to give brief descriptions of almost all methods of catching eels with lines in Germany and France.

Fishing for eels with rods begins in Western Europe in the spring and continues for the most part until early October, since in November the eels either go to sea (adults) or burrow into the mud, often in whole balls, and remain dormant until the onset warm weather(with us, probably, before the drain of the hollow water).

Since the eel is a nocturnal fish and hides in holes, brushwood, stones and similar shelters during the day, it is rarely caught in the middle of the day or in special ways, in holes, or only after a warm night thunderstorm and on very hot days before a thunderstorm, when it comes out of burrows closer to the surface of the water and kept under the shade of aquatic plants.

However, in the spring, after a long winter fast, the eel takes well even around noon. Like all nocturnal fish, the eel has a very developed sense of smell and is not difficult to bait by throwing where they intend to catch, pieces of intestines that have fallen out in the sand, pieces that have fallen with a stone, or by lowering a bladder with a load filled with blood and with a small hole into the water, from which blood would seep.

Many German authors advise making the nozzle itself smelly. Some are content with first dipping it in Provence or rosemary oil, others advise putting it (for the night) in a mixture (of equal parts by weight) of Bogorodsk grass, honey and greasy refluxes (greaves) to flavor the nozzle. This mixture is dissolved on coals and then diluted with flour (wheat) mash, almost to the density of fat.

In some cases, when the eels float on top, they are fed with peas (green) or boiled hempseed mashed with green peas. The eel is caught with a wide variety of baits and it can rather be called an omnivorous fish, although the actual bread bait does not seem to be used anywhere. For the most part, they fish it in spring and summer for creeping out and red worm, and in autumn - for small fish: live, and in the absence of such, dead minnows, chars, lampreys, small loaches, minnows, small smelts, also for pieces of fish, the best lamprey.

In addition, in many places in Germany and France, green hooks are planted, and in the absence of it, steamed peas, beans, Swiss cheese (see barbel), in the fall, small frogs (the hook is stuck into the anus and the thigh is pierced so that the frog can swim) or on skinned frog legs; also on pieces of beef, even corned beef, and on the liver, cut into worms.

The Germans, bearing in mind the highly developed sense of eel, are advised to put on a nozzle with clean hands, but I believe that this is both redundant and inconvenient. The eel has a small mouth and always swallows the nozzle, and therefore the hooks should not be larger than No. 5, and it is even better to use No., No. 7-8, but with a thick shaft. Recommend, for the sake of ease of removal, straight hooks (without bending to the side, with a sting strongly retracted outwards).

Live bait is also always mounted on single hooks, which are passed into the mouth and nostril. Since the eel has, although very small, but sharp teeth, with which a silk silt can rub a hair line, it is generally more prudent to tie hooks to bass or wire leashes, and when fishing at night with several fishing rods and traps, this is even necessary. It seems that peplum and wire can be replaced with heavily untwisted hemp leashes.

The fishing lines must be very strong and durable - silk or hemp, rods too, and the reel is never used with them. It is impossible to tire an eel and it should not be played if one does not want to risk the loss of fish and tackle. The eel, feeling caught, always tries to hide in a hole, brushwood, under snags, or wraps itself around underwater objects. In such cases, even the most reliable tackle often does not help, and often you have to tear it off, if possible at the leash, or wait for the fish, perhaps, to release the line.

The bite of an eel is very true; this fish is very greedy and rarely releases a nozzle, which, however, is explained by the fact that the eel often gets its teeth in it so much that it cannot immediately spit it out. In general, one should not delay hooking, especially when fishing with small baits - pieces of fish, peas, etc., and they pull out an eel immediately after hooking, without any ceremonies, trying only to drag it away from the water.

The net is very rarely used when pulling it out, because, firstly, the eel often slips into the loops, pushing them apart or breaking them, and secondly, because, while wriggling, it wraps the fishing line around itself. For the same reason, having pulled an eel ashore, they first of all step on the line at the hook with their foot (otherwise the eel will confuse it) or keep it taut so that the head of the fish is always raised.

Then they cut his spine at the head or at the tail, or, having rubbed his hands with sand or earth, take the fish by the head and hit the tail on some hard object (even the heel). The tail is the most sensitive part of the eel, since here, directly under the skin, there are two so-called lymphatic receivers, the contraction of which can be easily distinguished.

You can also take an eel with a silk or woolen handkerchief, and A. Carr even says that you can hold it, taking it in such a way that the middle finger is on top, and the index and ring fingers are below. But it goes without saying that you can only hold a small eel in your hands. Ruhlich advises to be careful with fish over 3 kg, as a large eel, wrapped around the arm, can break it.

It is difficult, but not necessary, to remove eels that are still alive from the hook, because, being planted in a basket, and even more so in a net planter, they often leave. It is best to put them in baskets with a tight lid, the bottom of which is lined with a fairly thick layer of damp moss. In the same baskets, eels are transported over considerable distances. According to Morisot, an eel in a damp and fresh place (for example, in a cellar) can live without water for 6-9 days.

The hook is usually swallowed quite deeply and for the most part it has to be pulled out with a metal needle ending in forks. Actually fishing includes fishing with a float, fishing with a bottom fishing rod without a float, plumb or "in a throw", then fishing with a "needle" and fishing without a hook. With a float, they usually catch a large worm, planted with scallops, or several dung, but the sting of the hook must be well hidden, because a well-fed eel is very careful.

The float needs to be light and the sinker, also small, should lie on the bottom along with the nozzle. The eel takes the nozzle into his mouth slowly. The float at first sometimes lies down, but it should be hooked only 2-3 seconds after it disappears under water. They cut very sharply and strongly and, as it was said, they immediately pull the fish out, just in case, away from the shore. Occasionally, precisely when eels swim on top, mostly after bad weather or thunderstorms, in muddy water they are caught on a smooth rod, and the nozzle (mainly green peas) should be shallow from the surface.

When fishing on weight in places with a more or less strong current, the weight of the sinker should correspond to the latter; rods are used both long and, when fishing from a boat (on deep places ah) short ones. When fishing in a throw, on long lines, they fish only on short rods, and there is no need to hold them in your hands and you can catch on several.

For a sinker, especially in fast places, a round bullet is preferable here, drilled through and freely sliding along the fishing line, to the leash, where it is delayed by a pinched pellet. Such a mobile sinker makes it possible to feel the weakest bite in the hand. The tip of the rod when fishing without a float must therefore be quite flexible and sensitive.

On the bottom they catch mostly in deep places, for example. in harbors, docks, estuaries. Fishing "on a needle" and on a bunch of worms without a hook is used mainly during the day, when the eel sits in holes. These holes are similar to those made by water rats, and are often visible from the shore. The presence of eels in them is recognized by a small cloud of turbidity produced by the breath and movements of the hidden fish.

You can, of course, although not so successfully, catch these two in original ways, especially the first, and where eels have a habit of hiding in brushwood or stones. Needle fishing, originating from Scotland, consists in general terms in the fact that a needle is weakly stuck into the end of a long stick or rod, on which a worm is put on.

This needle in the middle is tied to a strong fishing line, which is held in right hand, while the left carefully lowers the stick into the water, at the hole of the hole so that the worm at the end of the fishing rod touches the edges of the latter. If an eel sits in it, then he will not fail to grab the worm, tear it off the stick and swallow it. When cutting, the swallowed needle, tied to the middle, becomes across the pharynx or stomach, the fish cannot free itself from this crossbar, and it is pulled out of the hole to the shore.

In all likelihood, this method of fishing, in a more or less modified form, can also be applied to fishing other greedy fish, especially burbots, and therefore I consider it necessary to describe it in more detail. The fishing rod, of course, has nothing to do with it, and only length and lightness are required from it, sometimes 1-1.5 m of wire is tied to a simple stick, a worm (put on a needle) is hooked to its bent tip by the tail or head, or, also instead of sticking a needle into the end of a rod-rod, the worm is infringed on the fork at which this stick ends.

The needle should be quite thick (best used by tailors for loops) and no longer than 5 cm, which is why its thick part with the eye is filed and sharpened. The fishing line is strong, but thin hemp (basque leash is uncomfortable) or silk; its end is fixed on the needle with the help of a thin silk thread rubbed with pitch, like a hook-and-loop, but only in the opposite direction, since it is required that the fishing line is attached to the middle of the needle, better than an ordinary earthen (small) or large dung.

The needle is first threaded all the way into its front part, then its thick end is passed into the tail, as shown in the figure. It goes without saying that one should not rush to strike and that one should drag the eel out of the hole carefully, without loosening the fishing line. Sometimes, for convenience, the line is wound on a hand reel; in this case, it is useful to let the fish pre-wind (or wind up themselves) a few centimeters of the line.

Catching an eel with a needle Less prolific and successful is fishing for worms strung on a woolen cord, based on the fact that an eel, having tied its small teeth in this cord, cannot immediately release them. On a short woolen cord, with a needle, several large earthworms are strung; the ends of the cord are connected, the worms are arranged in a heap or festoons, and in the middle of this heap a fishing line with a heavy sinker is attached.

The rod should be long, strong, and since you have to catch at different depths (often significant), it is useful to use a reel to shorten and lengthen the line. They catch without a float, in a plumb line, slightly raising and lowering the nozzle and leaving it alone for several minutes - where there are many holes. The eel, seduced by the abundance of food offered to him, grabs the nozzle; at the same moment, with a quick movement, they pull him out without letting him unclench his teeth.

In addition to this method, in Germany they often catch eels on a dead fish with a large float made of a bundle of reeds and a stone so that the eel cannot drag the tackle. The fish is mounted as follows: the leash with the hook is cut off and with the help of a needle is passed through the mouth into the anus so that the hook sticks out of the mouth. In order for the fish to lie at the bottom not sideways, but like a living one, the sinker must be in its belly.

The lace is tied to one end of the float, and the same twine with a rather heavy stone is tied to the other. When setting, the length of both the one and the other lace should significantly exceed the depth of the water, so that the placed tackle would have the shape of a trapezoid, the upper side of which is made up of a float, and the side ones - with cords. Such shells can be placed quite a lot, and catching them is very successful.

Eel delivers very tasty and healthy food. The inhabitants of the Comacio lagoons, who feed mainly on eels, are distinguished by their strong constitution and flourishing health. But with weak stomachs, eel meat, especially old eel (with a golden ring around the eye), is rather difficult to digest. But the main reason that not only here, in Russia, but even in Western Europe, in places they don’t eat eel at all, is its resemblance to a snake.

The most delicious eels are those with a silvery belly. Tastiest and most digestible eels fried with spices and large quantity peppers, also fried and then marinated in vinegar. Large eels, before frying, must first be boiled. Breeding eels or keeping them, even if not in a large pool, is very easy. But in most cases, eels planted in a pond or lake, having even the slightest connection with a river or other flowing lakes, grow up and soon leave.

Common, river or European eel (lat. Anguilla anguilla) is a predatory freshwater fish from the family of river eels.

The eel has a long, snake-like body. The fish is so reminiscent of its appearance these reptiles, which in many parts of Russia are not even considered fish. And it’s completely in vain, eel meat is very revered by gourmets in some countries.

The body of the eel is cylindrical, and only the tail is slightly compressed laterally. The head is small, slightly flattened in front. The eyes are small, silvery-yellow.

The nose of different types of eels varies in width. The lower jaw is slightly longer than the upper. Both jaws, as well as the pineal bone, are seated with sharp small teeth. The gill openings do not completely cover the gill cavity, they are very narrow and set far enough from the occiput.

The eel has very long dorsal and anal fins that merge with the tail. Thus, one common, continuous fin is obtained, which stretches across the entire back of the fish. The fin rays, covered with thick skin, are very soft, so they are difficult to distinguish. At first it seems that the eel does not have scales at all, like many other types of fish. But this is an erroneous opinion - the scales of this fish are simply very small, oblong, arranged in a chaotic manner. They are very tender, and the body of the eel is covered with a thick layer of mucus, as a result of which it seems that the eel is “naked”.

The color of the back of eels varies, depending on the subspecies, it can be either brown-green or bluish-black. The ventral part is either yellowish-white or bluish-gray.


Eel is found in the basins of the Baltic, Mediterranean and German seas. It can also be found, although less frequently, in the waters of the basins of the Black, White, Azov, and Barents Seas. The eel also lives in some lakes, namely in Ladoga, Onega and Chudskoye.

In the rivers of the basin of the Black and Caspian Seas, the eel, most likely, got recently, presumably through channels from the reservoirs of the Baltic basin. It comes across very rarely here, only some individuals reach the Volga, but do not breed there. locals they confuse such travel eels with river lampreys (outwardly, these types of fish are very similar). Along the main channel of the Volga, eels even reach Saratov, but it is unlikely that they pass to the Caspian Sea in this way. But in some rivers flowing into the Volga in its upper reaches, eels are caught more often, probably falling into them from lakes.


Eel is a fish that is considered a delicacy in some countries.

The same eels-travelers are occasionally found in the Dnieper, Danube and Dniester. Even in the last century, zoologists found some individuals in the left tributary of the Desna. Most likely, eels got to the Dnieper from the Neman through the swamps called Pinsk. In general, the upper reaches of the Baltic and Black Sea basins are located nearby and are connected by numerous channels through which fish can migrate.

It happened that Kyiv fishermen found eels in the stomachs of caught catfish, which means that eels must be found nearby: either in the Dnieper or in Pripyat. Mogilev fishermen told zoologists that they met these fish in the Dniester. And in the 70s of the last century, eels were already caught in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov near the village of Petrovskaya.

But eels were launched into the Danube on purpose. Representatives of the fishermen's society of the city of Galați (a city and port in the east of Romania) launched more than half a million young eels into the Danube. Zoologists believe that eels are quite capable of acclimatizing and living in this area. But for spawning, they are likely to go to sea downstream the Danube.

According to zoology professor Karl Kessler, the river eel is not exactly a freshwater fish, it can rather be called migratory. Because she does not spend her whole life in river water and periodically goes to the sea. But there is a significant difference between the eel and other migratory fish. Basically, such fish grow in the sea and from there rise upstream the rivers to spawn. The eel, on the contrary, grows in the rivers, and for reproduction goes downstream into the sea. Nothing can stop an eel in his journey - he overcomes rapids and waterfalls with ease.


According to the professor, even the very high Narsky waterfall, inaccessible, for example, for salmon, is not an obstacle for eels. True, while scientists do not know for certain how the eel overcomes waterfalls, because, unlike the same salmon, it is not capable of jumping out of the water. “In all likelihood, he bypasses them, crawling over wet coastal rocks,” the zoologist writes about his assumptions, “at least it is true that he knows how to crawl very dexterously on wet ground and can live out of water for up to half a day or more. The reason for the survivability of the eel out of water is that the gill leaves, due to the elongated shape of the gill cavity and the narrowness of the gill openings, remain moist for a very long time, capable of supporting the process of respiration.

The eel tries to avoid rivers with sandy and rocky bottoms. But his favorite habitat is rivers with clay and silty soil and an abundance of mud. In summer, most often eels can be found between sedge and reeds, where he especially likes to be. For example, one of the places where eels are successfully caught is the reeds of the southern coast of the Krondshtat Bay.

In order to catch an eel, fishermen lay paths in the reeds, on which they set up special traps called “strings”. Fishermen distinguish here two types of these fish - running or sedentary. Sedentary eels are also called "herbalists". Eel is a nocturnal fish. During the day, he simply lies quietly in the reeds, but at night he goes out to fish. By the way, in winter, the fish also remain motionless and burrow into the mud, sometimes to a depth of more than 40 centimeters.


Eel is a carnivorous fish.

The eel is carnivorous, feeding on both other fish and their eggs. This fish does not disdain small living creatures that live in mud: various larvae, worms, crustaceans, snails. As for the fish that the eel feeds on, these are mainly species that, like the eel, live at the bottom of reservoirs - lampreys, sculpins. If, however, a fish of other species came into the field of view of an eel, it will not refuse it either, therefore it sometimes gets caught in the lines, the hooks of which the fishermen bait with small fish. But the feast itself begins with eels in spring and early summer, when cyprinids begin to spawn. The eel eats her huge number. At the end of summer and autumn, when caviar is no longer eaten, eels eat mainly crustaceans of the species “sharp-tailed idothea” (Idothea entomon), or, as fishermen call them, “sea cockroaches”.

On the ground, the eel moves completely freely, both forward and backward - in the direction where it is most likely to hide. At the same time, he moves like a snake, deftly twisting his long body. Killing a caught eel is also a rather difficult task, since those wounds that could easily put down a fish of another species are often not fatal for an eel. So the eel is amazingly tenacious, except that a fracture of the spinal column leads to a more or less rapid death of this fish. Surprisingly, even the muscles of the cut off pieces of eel contract for some time. Thus, it was noted that the jaws of an eel in an already cut off head made movements for a quarter of an hour. There is an opinion that an eel can be killed by placing it in salt water. But nothing like that - even in a strong saline solution, the eel lives for about a couple of hours.

The uniqueness of its behavior has long attracted the attention of naturalists and biologists. Also, the eel has repeatedly become the object of experiments. So, for example, interesting observations of the eel were recorded by O. Terletsky. The scientist observed the habits of eels in the Western Dvina basin, where the eel lives in many lakes, from which it passes into large rivers along rivers, streams, and sometimes even over land, and then goes to spawn in the sea. Eels start their “great” campaign in May and “go” all summer (the same eels that have not reached sexual maturity remain in lakes and rivers). In the event that the river flows "as usual", the eel goes at a depth, trying to move through muddy or grassy places. When the water level rises significantly, the eels stay in the coastal whirlpools. At the same time, they hunt at night, moving farther and farther on their way to the sea, and during the day they sleep, buried in mud, in silt or hiding under stones or snags.


Terletsky, with the help of experiments, was able to prove that eels are able to move from reservoir to reservoir, sometimes even on land - if there is no other way. Moreover, they crawl over fairly significant distances - half a kilometer and even more. Terletsky kept eels in a separate pool on a stream, and then carried them to a considerable distance from their habitat, set them free and observed their behavior. The experiments were carried out at night and also at dawn, when the soil was still wet. At first, the eels crawled in different directions, but very soon instinct turned them in the right direction in order to survive - towards the river. The eels crawled rather quickly, writhing like snakes, exclusively straight to the target, only occasionally turning off the path to get around an obstacle in the form of a piece of land with sand or not covered with grass. When they hit the slope leading to the water, they accelerated, trying to quickly get to their native element. Thus, it was proved that an eel can remain out of water for three or even more hours in the warm season. Its transition to water by land can even last all night, especially if heavy dew has fallen.

Reproduction and development of eel


Until recently, the reproduction of the eel remained a mystery shrouded in darkness for scientists. Even today, this side of the life of eels has not yet been fully explored. This is due to the fact that in order to continue the genus, fish of this species go to the sea. The Danish ichthyologist I. Schmidt and other researchers managed to shed light on this process only recently, in the 1920s. So the scientists found out that for reproduction, the eel is looking for places in the sea with a temperature of 16-17 degrees. One female lays up to 500 thousand eggs about 1 mm in size, and then dies. After a while, eel larvae appear from the eggs, resembling a willow leaf in appearance. Only the black eyes of the larvae are clearly visible on the translucent body, thus they are less visible to predators. It is worth noting that eel larvae were generally considered a separate species of fish for a long time - they are so unlike adults. When these little eels reach about 8 centimeters in length, they stop feeding, decrease in size by a couple of centimeters and move on to a new stage of development. Such a grown fry received the name "glass eel" from zoologists. It is still transparent, but already takes on a specific snake-like body shape. At this time, small eels begin their journey to the mouths of the rivers, move further along them, gradually acquiring an adult color.


Eel is a fish that grows very slowly.

The eel grows very slowly, reaching a meter length only by the fifth or sixth year of life. There are individuals with a length of 180 centimeters and a thickness greater than human hand. With a length of a meter, an eel weighs about one and a half kilograms, and the largest specimens can reach a mass of eight kilograms.

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Life underwater world has always attracted people with its variety of colors and the amazing ability of their inhabitants to adapt to existence in various conditions.

One of the most interesting fish living in the underwater fauna is the eel. Main Feature This fish is considered its appearance: the eel's body is elongated, very reminiscent of a snake.

The eel spends most of its life in fresh water, but spawning goes to the sea, which has also been a mystery to humans for a long time.

Appearance of the fish

Due to its very long body, this invertebrate is not eaten in many places and is not considered a fish. Only the tail of the eel is slightly flattened on the sides, and the body is completely cylindrical. A small head with a slightly flattened appearance. Some zoologists divide the eel into different types according to the shape of the nose, which may be more or less long and wide. The lower jaw of the fish is slightly longer than the upper, both of them contain many sharp and small teeth.

The eyes are yellowish-silver and small in size. The gill cavity is not completely covered by the lid due to the fact that the openings themselves are very narrow and strongly shifted from the back of the head. The dorsal and anal fins are rather long and unite into a single fin along with the caudal fin. The pectoral fins are well developed, but the pelvic fins are completely absent.

At first glance, the eel's body seems naked, but after removing the thick mucus, one can see strongly elongated scales that cover its entire surface. Depending on the habitat, the color of the fish can be bluish-black and dark green. The color of the belly is yellow-white or bluish-gray.

Types of acne

Several species can be attributed to the eel family, which are not very different from each other in external features, but have a great difference in habitat. Three types can be distinguished from this variety:

Habitat

The eel is one of the oldest fish on Earth, having appeared over a hundred million years ago. This was sea ​​view, which was discovered in the ocean off the coast of Indonesia. Now it is widespread in seas, lakes and rivers, which are an intermediate place of their stay. Most a large number of these invertebrates inhabit the basins of river reservoirs associated with the seas:

This fish tries to avoid places with rocky or sandy bottom, and prefers to live on clay soils covered with mud. AT summer time year likes to crawl between sedge and reeds. It is active at night and prefers to be at rest during the day.

An amazing feature of the eel is considered to be its the ability to crawl from one body of water to another on land and over a considerable distance. Thus, it ends up in endorheic lakes. The presence of skin that can absorb oxygen and allows the eel to survive without water for a while. It is noticed that in the process of such migration, the fish tries to move along the grassy surface directly to the reservoir. Moreover, the direction of movement was changed by individuals only when they encountered bare ground or sand.

In the rivers eel sticks to quiet and deep places. With a large rise in water, it is often found in whirlpools even in the daytime.

Nutrition and behavioral patterns

Eel fish is a carnivorous invertebrate animal whose diet includes:

  • worms;
  • small fish;
  • snails;
  • frogs;
  • caviar of other fish;
  • larvae;
  • shellfish;
  • newts.

In reservoirs where tench and pike are found, you can find a large accumulation of eels, as these fish are their favorite delicacy. During the abundant spawning of carp fish, he eats their caviar with pleasure.

Being a predatory fish, the eel is nocturnal. Young animals live in the coastal zone, but adults try to go deep to the bottom, while burrowing into the ground up to 80 cm.

With the approach of evening time, the eel leaves its shelters and begins to search for food. Animals, moving slowly, swim up to thickets of aquatic plants located near the coastal zone. Invertebrates have poor eyesight, but thanks to their excellent sense of smell, they perfectly smell their prey several meters away and easily navigate in complete darkness.

With the onset of cold weather, the fish falls into a stationary state and looks like frozen snags that stick out of the ground.

Reproduction features

One more amazing feature Acne is a reproduction process that has long been a mystery to humans. Only at the end of the ⅩⅨ century, scientists were able to prove that this process occurs, like in all other fish. The scientists were confused by the fact that the eggs were completely different from their parents. Even at first they were referred to separate species fish.

Adult individuals become capable of reproduction only at the age of 7–9, when sex differences between females and males begin to appear. Eel spawning goes into the sea to a depth of 400 meters, where females at a water temperature of 14-18 ℃ lay up to 500 thousand eggs up to one millimeter in size. In shape, the larvae resemble willow leaves, compressed from the sides, while absolutely transparent.

Until the time of maturation, the larvae go through several stages:

  1. After surfacing to the surface of the sea, they are picked up warm current and move to the shores of the European continent. This period takes about three years, during which the annual growth of larvae is very small.
  2. At the next stage, when the larva reaches a size of 7 cm, it decreases by one centimeter, and the glass eel is formed.
  3. At this time, the fish begin to acquire a snake-like oval shape, but at the same time remain transparent.
  4. It is in this form that small fish approach the mouths of rivers. Further, moving upstream, they acquire the color of an adult fish.

After living in the rivers for about 9-12 years, the eel again migrates to the sea to breed. Then comes the inevitable death of the individual.

The reproduction of the electric eel is considered an even more mysterious process, since this type of marine fauna is not fully understood. It is only known that the fish goes deep to the bottom for spawning and returns already fully grown offspring capable of emitting electric charges.

Subtleties of fishing

Considering that the river eel is a predatory fish, it is not very difficult to choose a bait for catching it. Worms, pieces of meat, small fish are excellent means to attract the attention of an eel. If you use worms as bait, then there should be a lot of them at once, but the eel bites much more willingly on one large worm.

Highly nice results can be achieved when fishing with live bait, it is advisable to use fish from the same reservoir where eels live.

The best bait is:

  • roach;
  • rudd;
  • scavenger;
  • bleak.

Live bait should be 3-5 cm in size. Dead fish can be used.

To improve the bite, a few days before the start of fishing, you need to feed the eel with a mixture of small fish and chopped worms. Feeding on the day of fishing is not worth doing.

The time from mid-May to early June is considered the most favorable for successful fishing, since after hibernation fish take any bait. But in the summer and autumn months, you will have to use a more significant bait - meat or small fish. Night is the best time of day for eel fishing. Biting during a thunderstorm is especially successful.

But not only the knowledge of the most attractive baits is the key good fishing, it is necessary to turn Special attention and to improve the actions of the fisherman. So, when fishing for a worm or a small fish, you need to cut immediately after a bite. But if pieces of dead or large fish serve as bait, then you need to hook it when you re-bite. First, the predator swims off to turn the prey over in its mouth, only then it swallows it.

Eel is a very agile and quirky fish. She is able to cling to various objects and branches at the bottom of the reservoir, resist and back away, so it can be very difficult to pull out a caught individual. You won’t be able to take it with your hand, you need to use a large net, and the tail should not hang down, otherwise the fish will slip away. You can remove the eel from the hook only after you have transferred it to the net.

It is very problematic to hold a caught eel in your hands, as it is abundantly covered with mucus. He is also very hard to kill. He dies quickly only after a spinal fracture.

The meat of the European eel is very tasty and soft. It can be smoked, fried and marinated. In many foreign restaurants, smoked delicacy eel is often served as the main dish.

For a long time we did not know the main thing about the eel: how, when and where it produces offspring. For a long time, people, when cutting fish when cooking, got used to finding caviar or milk in it at the right time of the year. But for the eel, that proper time didn't seem to exist at all.

river eel or European eel(Anguilla anguilla) is a species of predatory catadromous fish from the eel family. In 2008, it was included in the IUCN Red List as a species "critically endangered". It has a long wriggling body with a brownish-greenish back, with yellowness on the sides and abdominal part. The skin is very slippery and the scales are small. It feeds on insect larvae, mollusks, frogs, and small fish. Reaches two meters in length and weighs 4 kg.

No one could say with certainty that he had seen the eggs of an eel, and about a thousand years ago Aristotle summed up the folk experience, stating that "the eel has no sex, but the depths of the sea give rise to it."

A little later, they found out that eels can live quite a long time without water, but only if they are surrounded by a humid environment. From here came the stories that eels come out of the rivers at night. Such a phenomenon cannot be considered impossible just because the eel is a fish. Of course, he will not encroach on peas or steal young lentils, since he does not eat plant foods, but he can prey on insects or earthworms.

But if eel walks did not give rise to much controversy, since the idea was simply agreed upon, things were different with questions of reproduction. There was a real secret here. And each author developed his own theory. Konrad Gesner, writing in 1558, still tried to keep an open mind, saying that all who studied the topic of their origin and reproduction adhered to three different points vision.

According to one, eels are born in mud or moisture. Apparently, Dr. Gesner did not regard this idea very highly.

According to another theory, eels rub against the ground with their belly, and the mucus from their bodies fertilizes the silt and soil, and they give birth to new eels not male and not female, since eels are said to have no sex differences.

A third opinion was that eels reproduced by spawning like all other fish.

A little later, zoologists acted very logically: they dissected eels in the hope of finding, if not caviar and milk, then at least organs capable of isolating them in due time. And they found what they were looking for. At the same time, the fishermen provided additional and seemingly very simple proof.

Every year in the autumn they noticed that many adult eels go down the rivers and disappear into the open sea. And in the spring, huge schools of small, several centimeters long, eels enter the rivers and slowly make their way upstream.

These eels are transparent, which is why they are called “glass eels” on the coast of the European continent. So about 150 years ago, scientists decided that the dispute was over. The eel has been recognized freshwater fish that spawns in the sea. This is what the question looked like in the middle of the 20th century. But the researchers had no idea what surprises awaited them in the near future.

In 1851, the naturalist Kaul caught a very interesting sea fish. She was curious above all for her appearance. If you put a few of these fish in a salt water aquarium, then, at first glance, the aquarium will seem empty. Looking closer, you can see several pairs of tiny black eyes that float "by themselves".

A long observation will help you to see the watery shadows: they trail behind the eyes like tails. Pulled out of the water, this fish looks like a laurel leaf, only big. A kind of bay leaf made of flexible glass, thin, transparent and fragile. The fish can be placed on a newspaper or book and print can be easily read through it.

Dr. Kaul began to study the literature in search of a description of this fish and, finding nothing, described it himself. According to the scientific tradition, he picked up her name: leptocephalus brevirostris. That seemed to be the end of it all.

However, two Italian ichthyologists, Grass and Calandruccio, read Kaup's description and decided to study Leptocephalus further. At first it was a routine: they caught fish near Messina, prepared an aquarium and planted several leptocephaluses there. The fish ate, swam in circles and looked - at least those parts of them that were visible - quite healthy.

But they got smaller! The largest of the leptocephaluses was 75 mm long when caught. While he was being watched, he became a full 10 mm shorter. In addition, he lost weight and lost his leaf-like shape. And then, quite unexpectedly, he turned into a young "glass" eel!

Recovering from their astonishment, Grassi and Calandruccio announced that the leptocephalus discovered by Kaul was nothing more than an eel in the larval stage or a fry of an adult eel. River and lake eels immediately began to be considered teenagers who, having matured, again returned to the sea. The adult eel, the Italians concluded, lays its eggs on the bottom of the sea and probably perishes, since no one has ever seen large eels enter the estuary from the sea and swim upstream.

Transparent young "glass" eels

The eggs hatch into fry, which Dr. Kaul mistook for a leptocephalus. They remain in the bottom layers of the water until either they do not turn into, or are preparing to turn into a young eel. Then the young eels swim all the way into the less saline waters until they finally enter the rivers.

Grass and Calandruccio explained why leptocephalus is so rare. Because it sits at the bottom of the sea. They were just lucky, and they got the larvae from the Strait of Messina, where the currents often bring the inhabitants of the deep to the surface. If you make Leptocephalus more or less visible by placing it on a sheet of black paper, you will notice that its body consists of many segments.

Scientifically, these segments, similar to chain links, are called mayomers. The Italians thought that the number of segments could correspond to the number of vertebrae in an adult eel. And they proved that this is so: if you have the patience to count the number of segments in a fry, you can tell how many vertebrae an adult will have.

All this was great, but the story is not over yet!

Another year, another sea, another scientist. In 1904, in the Atlantic, between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, the Danish biologist Johannes Schmidt, working for the Royal Fisheries Ministry, was on board the small Danish steamer Thor. Throwing a net from the side, Schmidt caught one transparent "laurel leaf", so famous by Italian scientists.

In length, he could compete with the largest specimens from Messina. Dr. Schmidt felt a pleasant excitement: for some unknown, but probably amusing reason, the leptocephalus was near the surface of the water. But later, the same transparent fish began to be caught in other parts of the Atlantic.
On the sea ​​map Western Europe a line is visible where the depth is three thousand feet.

Sailors call it "the 500 fathom line". To the west of it - the abyss of the Atlantic, to the east - shallow seas that flooded part of the continental land. Schmidt noted that approximately in the region of this line at the end of summer, 75-mm leptocephaluses accumulate when their transformations, described by Grassi and Calandruccio, begin.

By the next spring, they become young eels and come to the mouths of European rivers. After trial and error, Schmidt realized that the place where the eels started their journey from was most likely the Sargasso Sea.

The Sargasso Sea, undeservedly known as a graveyard of lost ships that lose their way in a floating ball of thick rotting algae, is actually a region Atlantic Ocean, where in warm waters algae of a special kind grow in southern latitudes.

Having an oval shape, the sea stretches from north to south for about a thousand miles and two thousand from west to east. It rotates slowly around its axis, as it is constantly pushed by ocean currents and especially the Gulf Stream. The center of this rotating sea lies a few hundred miles southeast of Bermuda, and the islands themselves are located on the edge of the Sargasso Sea. How close to the edge depends on the time of year as the amount of algae varies.

The expedition, which was to trace the path of the eel to its actual spawning ground, set sail in 1913 on the small schooner Margarita. Schmidt and his assistants noticed that the farther along the Gulf Stream they moved, the smaller the leptocephaluses became. The spawning ground was in the area of ​​the Sargasso Sea - this expedition established exactly. Alas, after only six months of work, "Margarita" was thrown ashore in the West Indies. And then the world war began.

In 1920, Schmidt returned to work - on the four-masted motor schooner "Dana" (remember this name!). And I found out that the European eels that leave the rivers of Europe in autumn seem to move with a constant high speed and get into the Sargasso Sea for Christmas and New Year. Where they spawn is still not exactly known: it is not found in the algae floating on the surface, although they are overgrown with caviar of other fish.

She doesn't seem to be seabed because the ocean under the Sargasso Sea is very deep. During the first summer they grow up to 25 mm, during the second this length doubles, and during the third it reaches 75. After the transformation, they enter fresh water and go up the rivers. In the three years leading up to the transformation, they move about a thousand miles a year, "rolling" most of the time in the currents of the Gulf Stream.

American eels also spawn under the Sargasso Sea, but in a slightly different area. Their spawning ground is closer to the shores of America. The American eel also travels a thousand miles a year, but grows to a length of three inches in one year. He does not need more time for this, because he is much closer to the mouth of the rivers, in which he spends most of his life.

Do young eels go astray? So far, nothing like this has been seen! The mystery of migration has not yet been solved. But let's talk about another mystery.

After sailing in the Sargasso Sea, the ship "Dana" participated in another expedition, around the world. It took place in 1928-1930. The collection collected by the expedition is now in the marine biology laboratory in Charlottenlund. There is a leptocephalus in the collection, caught at a depth of about a thousand feet near the extreme point of Africa, 35 degrees 42 minutes south latitude and 18 degrees 37 minutes East.

This leptocephalus has a length of... 184 cm! An adult eel of this species is unknown to anyone... If it grows in the same proportions as an ordinary eel, then a monster is obtained... more than 20 m long. We will not argue that this is the famous giant sea ​​serpent, but let's still ask ourselves the question: what would have grown out of him if he had remained free?

However, the American researcher William Beebe in 1934, diving in a bathysphere off Bermuda to a depth of 923 m, noticed that such leptocephals swim in pairs. Therefore, it is likely that some deep-sea leptocephalians are neotenic larvae, i.e. can reproduce without undergoing metamorphosis and throughout life without turning into an adult form.

Giant leptocephalians are still found today