- I read the blog post. Then I thought "surely the eels in my local southern German lakes can't be from the sea". But sure enough, the European eel hatches close to the Bahamas.
I audibly wtf'ed multiple times while going down this rabbit hole. Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_eel
- I'm surprised to learn that it is surprising that eels are fish. I mean, they live in water, they have fins, they're generally fish-shaped... What's more surprising is their incredible life cycle and reproductive journey. I'm surprised the author didn't put that in the title.
- The author does not appear to be aware of this but eels are not the most snake-like among fish.
Already the Ancient Greek and Roman authors had a classification of fish, where eels where less snake-like, because they have pectoral fins, while the most snake-like group of fishes consisted of morrays and lampreys, both of which have neither scales nor any kind of fins, being less similar to other fish than eels.
The loss of the legs and the elongation of the body, resulting in a snake-like form has happened not only in many groups of vertebrates, including eels and morrays, caecilian amphibians, snakes and several groups of legless lizards, but also in many worms, e.g. earthworms and leeches, which evolved from ancestors with legs. Even among mammals, weasels and their relatives have evolved towards a snake-like form, though they still have short legs.
by culturestate
1 subcomments
- Incredibly, I actually did learn this today because it was in the NYT crossword and I went down a very similar rabbit hole. I never made it to Freud, though, after I discovered and got sucked into the European Union Eel Regulation Framework[1].
If you, like me, are masochistically fascinated by this kind of “I can’t believe this is a real thing that the government actually does” documentation I recommend giving it a once-over.
1. https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/ocean/marine-biodi...
- Hank Green recently did a couple of videos on the topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On2V_L9jwS4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C3lR3pczjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElpRJQ2FZiM
by globular-toast
2 subcomments
- An entertaining read, but doesn't mention one of the weirdest things for me: eels essentially colonise the land. They don't just swim up rivers they get out and find their way into lakes and ponds that aren't connected to the sea by water at all. They can breathe air using their mouths.
by perihelions
0 subcomment
- Here's a long-form article on the same topic (the 19th century search for the spawning ground of eels)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/where-do-eels-... ("Where Do Eels Come From?" (2020))
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23265000 (56 comments)
- As someone whos allergic to fish, I ALSO learned eels are fish when we got some roasted eel as an appetizer and I had an anaphylaxis flare up :P
by flowerbreeze
4 subcomments
- There was a book about the eels being born from Sargasso sea, all transparent at first, that I remember reading ages ago. It mentioned a lot of legends as well surrounding the eels, because the young ones were never seen - only fully grown eels.
I cannot remember precisely, but to explain their existence, there were even some recipes about "creating" eels. I think one was something similar to "put a couple of sticks under a bit of wet turf for a night". And that is how the witches were able to create the eels.
I wish I could remember the title of the book, but unfortunately it was more than 30 years ago when I read it.
- TFW random eel content popping up while i enjoy my unagi.
"We don't know where eels come from"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0UIJekwyPY
- Well, there are also legless salamanders, that look like eels pretty much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-toed_amphiuma
Some of them have no lungs even:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcaecilia_iwokramae
So, it makes sense to say that eels are fish, because there are lungless eel-like creatures that are actually amphibians.
- If you enjoyed this article then you must watch the A Capella Science music video on the same subject:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TzN148WQ2OQ
By far the catchiest song about eel mating you will encounter today.
by doctorhandshake
1 subcomments
- I enjoyed this but was sorry to see the author mentioning eating eels without mentioning that they're in critical decline. https://courses.lsa.umich.edu/healthy-oceans/freshwater-eels...
- I’ve learned all sorts of strange facts about eels by doing crossword puzzles. EEL is a super common crossword answer. If the clue references some aquatic creature and the answer is 3 letters long, very likely the answer is EEL.
by evereverever
1 subcomments
- I can HIGHLY recommend the book:
"Book of Eels" by Patrik Svensson
Eels are incredibly interesting.
- I regret to report that there is surely no such thing as a fish.[0]
[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/12/04/no-fish/
- Eels were commonly currency:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-eel-rent-map-...
- Eels were fish.
They will go extinct in XXI century. Most members of the family like the critically endangered European Eel are being eaten to extinction. Some studies claim that a 98% of the population of European eels alive in 1970, has vanished. Almost one of each two eels sold in USA as food belongs to this species.
Everybody were sharing recipes until the last one.
- Where I live in Portugal glass eels are a seasonal delicacy (galeota/meixão). There is much confusion about the nature of this fish, as the same name is reused across the country, but I believe it is glass eel.
I don't like it and it seems to be going out of style with younger generations, which is good as its fishing is not sustainable.
- Also interesting that eels, much like crabs, are a body form that has evolved many times in various ancestral lineages.
- See (listen?) also the Radiolab episode https://radiolab.org/podcast/slippery-mystery
by smallerfish
2 subcomments
- > 399 Court St, Brooklyn
The address in the footer appears to be a cafe: https://www.google.com/maps/place/389+Court+St,+Brooklyn,+NY...
by boesboes
16 subcomments
- Apparently we are all fish. Or fish don't exist.
To explain: if you want to define a taxonomy in which all things that look like fish and swim are 'fish' then we are too. We are more closely related to most 'fish' than sharks are. I.e the last common ancestor of herring AND sharks is older than our & herring's LCA.
- Suggest looking up the word "spat" and relatedly "spate"
- This was a surprisingly fun and captivating read.
- usual reminder that European eels[0] are close to extinction, being critically endangered, and yet, for reasons, they are still being fished and eaten all over.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_eel
- While reading an article, I went to check how an eel differs from a lamprey - and I found out that a lamprey isn’t actually a fish
by josefritzishere
0 subcomment
- Everything is a secret third thing.
- Turtles are reptiles.
by lazylizard
0 subcomment
- eels -> 鳗鱼
sharks -> 鲨鱼
but whale also...鲸鱼
- I love these 'wait, what!' moments in biology. Thanks for sharing this - definitely going to be my fun fact for the week!
by rideontime
2 subcomments
- I was curious to see what would happen if I clicked the "Unsubscribe" button at the bottom of this page, and sure enough, it told me that I unsubscribed. Neat.
by general1465
1 subcomments
- Wait until you figure out that cucumber is a fruit.
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