#sargasso september

[freshwaterfishfactswithfin]

European Eel

Now, this one here is actually considered critically endangered because of overfishing and habitat destruction. Again, a freshwater eel species, same genus as the American Eel actually, Anguilla. Technically, Anguilla really contains the majority of freshwater eels, and all the catadromous eels. (Catadromous means they live in freshwater but migrate to salt to spawn and die; if you're a bit lost, dw, I'm awful at explaining!) They don't really live too long in the wild, like 20 years max, but in captivity, these fellers are beasts. The Brantevik Eel act lived from 1859 to 2014 in a random well in Sweden granted I wouldn't recommend trying to get an eel to live 150 years in your personal well.

Once again, they are eels, known for that silly, little slither-ous shape. I realized, little versed as I am in fish, you fellers are probably less versed, so I'll share some basic eel knowledge. All eels are carnivores, some even being cannibalistic. Eels require a ton of water to keep, mostly because they thrive in shallow, wide waters, some species even thriving in just mud fields. As you should know, electric eels are knifefish, not eels though the vast majority of eels are more than a little electrosensitive.

[freshwaterfishfactswithfin]

The American Eel

As Sargasso September winds to a close, it's important to get these little fellers into this blog! (In fact, Sargasso September is what made me create this blog.) Like a whole bundle of Northern Hemisphere eels, such as the American Conger Eel and the European Conger Eel, the American Eel spawns in the Sargasso Sea. This here presents a bit of an issue because the Sargasso Sea was formed by Atlantic gyres, meaning it's also the location a whole heap of trash swims on over to after it gets dumped into the ocean; that, of course, meaning they've got some spawning issues. That combined with the overfishing they faced in the past, you might be wondering, "Why, Miss? Shouldn't they be a fair bit past threatened then? With all those threats and all?" I'm glad you asked! See, though the American Eel has a complex life cycle, a factory is pretty quickly able to solve that, so around two million of these mucus-y fellers are produced yearly for bait though the number in the wild is incredibly low.

Like all eels, they've got a mucus layer, and they're known for that long and slender (Slenderfish reference?!) body shape. They die immediately after spawning, leaving the eggs in buoyant clumps on the Sargasso Sea.