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Eels have an amazing migration. All eels in Europe are born in the same place. The Sargasso Sea.
Eel eggs are the size of a grain of rice and they float on ocean currents from the Sargasso Sea to Europe. What is the name of the ocean current they float on?
When they reach the coast of Europe, these eggs go through their first metamorphosis. They turn into a glass eel.
The glass eel move to the mouth of an estuary and here it gets its first taste of fresh water. It stays here until it turns into an elver.
The elver then travels up the rivers in darkness by using the incoming tide. Elver’s are know as the original surfers.
They stay as elvers for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years before their next metamorphosis. Then they become the yellow eel.
The eel’s final metamorphosis is when it becomes the silver eel.
Now it must prepare to return to the Sargasso to lay eggs. Why is it returning to the Sargasso Sea?
Before it begins its journey, its eyes grow to 4 times its original size. Why so?
Its eyes grow so that it can see in the dark and in the depths of the ocean. It waits for a big flood in the rivers and then it retraces its steps back to the Sargasso Sea. It takes them 80 days to get to the Sargasso Sea.
When they arrive they spawn and then die.
The Eel lifecycle.
