Eels hold tight to their biological secrets, so much so that Aristotle mused that they must be sexless creatures spontaneously emerging from the “earth’s guts.” Now, at least one eel enigma is finally a step closer to being solved.
For the first time, scientists have tracked American eels migrating to their legendary spawning grounds in the Atlantic Ocean.
“For a very long time, circumstantial evidence has pointed to the Sargasso Sea as the breeding grounds of eels, but like crime novel detectives, scientists have wanted conclusive proof,” said David Cairns, a research scientist at Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who was not involved in the work….
…“We shouldn’t just drop this and say ‘O.K., that’s fine,’” said John Casselman, a biologist at Queen’s University in Ontario, who was not involved in the work. “We should only be satisfied when we solve the ultimate mystery of this fish and its great migration — exactly where it spawns and how it gets there.”
Read the full story in the New York Times.