eel, (order Anguilliformes), any of more than 800 species of teleost fishes characterized by elongate wormlike bodies. Anguilliforms include the common freshwater eels as well as the voracious marine morays.

General features

Regardless of their final habitat, all eels probably pass through the leptocephalus stage, an extended larval phase, in the open ocean and undergo metamorphosis to a juvenile stage that is a smaller version of the adult. At maturity eels range in length from 10 cm (4 inches), in the deep-sea Cyema atrum, to 3.5 metres (11.5 feet), in the moray Thyrsoidea macrura. Eels occur to considerable depths in most oceans and are greatly diverse in tropical seas. They range in colour from drab gray or black in deep-sea species to colourful and patterned in tropical reef species. Only the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), which are in places abundant and greatly valued as food, are of major economic importance.

Natural history

Eels have a remarkable life cycle. Broadly, it consists of development and early growth in the open ocean: the planktonic (free-floating) dispersal of eggs and larvae, metamorphosis, juvenile and adult growth, and the migration of maturing adults to an oceanic spawning area. Eels share the leptocephalus phase with several other orders (Elopiformes [tarpons and relatives], Saccopharyngiformes [gulpers and relatives], and Albuliformes [bonefishes]). A prolarva, hatching from a relatively large egg (up to 2.5 mm [about 0.1 inch] in diameter), rapidly becomes a leaflike leptocephalus, which floats in the surface layers of the open ocean for as long as two and a half years before metamorphosing.

Although the leptocephali were once thought to have been fishes of a distinct group, their relationship with the Anguilliformes was soon recognized from transitional specimens that showed larval and adult characters. They proved so difficult to identify, however, that new larval types were named as species of the genus Leptocephalus (though they cannot actually be considered different species from the adults that produced them), accounting for the several hundred forms known.

Leptocephali are not uncommon in the upper 500 metres (roughly 1,600 feet) of the ocean, a distribution that may be associated with the availability of food (diatoms and minute crustaceans). Their predators include various pelagic fishes. In tropical eels, larval life is possibly four to six months, but temperate species may spend upward of a year as larvae. During this time leptocephali, in the presence of suitable currents, may disperse widely from the adult spawning area. Working on massive collections of larvae from 1905 to 1930, a Danish biologist, Johannes Schmidt, established the early life history of the European (Anguilla anguilla) and American freshwater eels (A. rostrata) and claimed that both species reproduced within the Sargasso Sea before using ocean currents to disperse to their respective freshwater habitats in Europe and North America. Although parts of his work have been questioned, especially the process by which these eels returned to their spawning areas, his description of a western Atlantic spawning and a trans-Atlantic dispersal of leptocephali of these eels is still largely accepted. Contemporary studies suggest, however, that adult American and European eels use a combination of chemical, geomagnetic, and geographic cues to return to separate spawning areas east of the Sargasso Sea near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

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After reaching full growth, the larva begins a rapid metamorphosis in which the body undergoes several progressive changes. The body becomes cylindrical and greatly reduced in bulk, perhaps by as much as 90 percent by weight, and the anal vent advances from its subterminal position to about the midpoint. The larval teeth are lost, the snout becomes rounded, the dorsal fin originates farther forward, and the larval melanophores (black pigment cells) disappear. Other changes, such as the loss of the pectoral fins or a reduction of body length, may also occur.

Leptocephali are markedly unlike their adults, and the metamorphic changes are so great that a fundamental problem arises in the correlation of the great variety of known leptocephali with their adults. Metamorphosis has been observed in aquariums and deduced in the oceans from progressive growth series in plankton samples. Certain characters survive metamorphosis and are important in the recognition of eel species. These include the number of muscle segments (myomeres); the development of dorsal, anal, and caudal fin rays; and the relative positions of the renal vessels and the gallbladder. In many leptocephali the larval melanophores also remain in the juvenile (or elver) stage.

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Metamorphosis involves physiological and behavioral as well as structural changes, particularly those related to the assumption of a deep-sea, shallow-water, or freshwater mode of life. Metamorphosis is the mechanism by which the leptocephalus, after a period of growing, feeding, and competing with other similarly organized planktonic animals, can enter a markedly different habitat where body shape, differentiated feeding mechanisms, sense organs, and body coloration play an important role in survival. Metamorphosis in all eels is probably completed in the open ocean. The annual invasion of fresh waters by Anguilla elvers is a locally well-known process; it occurs during October–March in Europe and in spring in other temperate regions.

During several years’ growth to maturity, eels are essentially carnivores, feeding diversely on planktonic or benthic (bottom-living) animals. Maturity is reached after about 10 years in the European freshwater eel (A. anguilla) but possibly much earlier in tropical marine species. The process of growth and maturation has been most closely studied in the European freshwater eel. In this species, both sexes pass through successive phases of neutrality, precocious feminization, and juvenile hermaphroditism prior to becoming definitively male or female, the sex being determined mainly by environmental factors.

All eels apparently undergo a short or long distance migration at maturity to a spawning area within the area of adult distribution (in most tropical marine eels) or some distance from it (in temperate Anguillidae and Congridae). These areas are generally located over the continental slope or in ocean basins some distance offshore.

During their juvenile and adult life, most eels are solitary fishes, swimming slowly by means of sinuous lateral movements of the body and median fins. Some species burrow rapidly, using a pointed tail and backward body movements. Morays and congers inhabit rock crevices, while certain congrids (Heterocongrinae, garden eels) form vast colonies of several hundred individuals in tropical reef areas.