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Baby American eels are found only in the ocean. But adult eels sometimes show up far inland, including in Minnesota, where they live for many years before returning to the sea. Why and how do eels travel so far?
Baby eels, called larvae, look nothing like adults. At hatching, they’re barely a quarter-inch long, fat-bodied with a pointed head and tail, and as clear as water. For centuries, this fooled natu-ralists into thinking adult eels and their larvae were separate species.
23 paź 2002 · American eels used to be much more common in Minnesota then they are today. Today American eels are found mostly in the lower Mississippi River and its larger tributaries, such as the St. Croix and Minnesota rivers. Occasionally they are found in Lake Superior.
Baby eels are called leptocephalus right after hatching through larvae. Similarly, a large number of young eels are called elvers. They migrate upriver from the sea.
11 paź 2018 · To reach Minnesota, American eels have to swim all the way up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico or all the way through the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes to reach Lake Superior. Only the females make the long swim to Minnesota (see reproduction below).
28 paź 2023 · Baby eels appear to follow a magnetic map from their spawning point in the Sargasso Sea. Named for the brown sargasso seaweed that grows in the area, the Sargasso Sea is a region in the Atlantic Ocean bordered by four currents.
10 maj 2024 · After a larval stage, young eels have a transparent phase, as glass eels. Baby eels, when a bit older, are called elvers. There are over 800 different species of eel.
