Jul 24, 2020
There is much to be learned from how little we know about them.
"To the eel, death seemed relative,” he writes. He has learned that the timing of an eel’s final transformation, the one that brings it to both its own death and the birth of the next generation, seems to be unrelated to time itself: eels might feel the pull to return to the sea after eight years inland, or after nearly sixty, or never, remaining behind in a sort of suspended animation. The eels that travel together across the ocean might be at the same stage of life, yet decades apart in age. Svensson is captivated by the implications of this. “You have to ask yourself: How does a creature like that perceive time?” he wonders."
