eel

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adults and larvae of representative anguilliforms

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Animals & Nature

eel

fish

Also known as: Anguilliformes, anguilliform

Written by Peter Henry John Castle

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 14, 2024 • Article History

American eel (Anguilla rostrata)

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Category: Animals & Nature

Related Topics:: moray; gulper; Congroidei; Muraenoidei; Anguilloidei

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Recent News

Mar. 13, 2024, 11:42 AM ET (Popular Science)

How citizen scientists are protecting 'glass eels'

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. 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 ...(100 of 2182 words)

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