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July 31, 2013

"Nobody has ever actually seen eels mate"

aa-sargasso1.jpg

Even with this knowledge, nobody has ever actually seen eels mate. Instead they've inferred its occurrence from the oceanic distribution of larvae.
The youngest American eels (Anguilla rostrata) are found in the Sargasso Sea, part of the northern Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda. From there they drift on the Gulf stream up the eastern coast of North America, eating plankton and becoming more eel-like, though still translucent. At some point they encounter, hundreds of miles from shore, a part-per-trillion chemical trace of fresh water and instinctively follow it back to the source. An Eel Swims in the Bronx @ Nautilus

Posted by gerardvanderleun at July 31, 2013 5:47 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

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