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American eels are long, slender snakelike
fish common in salt and fresh water along the Atlantic coast. Its body is
rounded, with a long jaw and pointed snout. Behind its small, rounded eyes
are two nostrils. The dorsal, crudal, and tail fins are joined and continuous
from the middle of the back, around the tail, to the middle of the belly.
It has no pelvic fins, and its scales are small in size and hardly noticeable.
Often misidentified as sea snakes, eels can be distinguished by the continuous
fin that is abesent in snakes. The Americal eel is a catadromous fish, exhibiting
behavior opposite of the anadromous herring and salmon. They migrate from
fresh water to spawn in salt-water environments.
The early life history of the American
eel has been discovered only recently. Adult eels, ages 5 to 35, migrate
from fresh-water creeks and rivers to spawn in the warm, nutrient-rich waters
of the Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is an area in the Caribbean east of
the Bahamas and north of the West Indies. The adults die after spawning,
and the larvae spend the next year drifting and swimming with the Gulf Stream
to norther coastal waters. The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is a similar
species of eel that migrates a great distance to spawn in the Sargasso Sea.
They drift farther north in the Gulf Stream to Europe, while the American
eel larvae move east once they reach the Atlantic coast.
American eel larvae do not resemble adults
at hatching; instead, they are leaf-shaped, long, transparent, and flattened
sideways. After they "leptocephalus" or larval stage, the eel transforms
during its journey to fresh water, finally resembling a small adult eel by
the time it arrives. Most of the young eels, or elvers, migrate toward freshwater
streams and rivers, while some remain in the muddy waters of tidal creeks
and marshes. Females will migrate further into fresh water than males.
Eels are notcurnal scavengers, preferring
the night environment to forage for food.
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Anguilla rostrata 
