American eel
| American eel | ||||||||||||
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American eel ( Anguilla rostrata ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Anguilla rostrata | ||||||||||||
| Lesueur , 1817 |
The American eel ( Anguilla rostrata ) is a bony fish from the genus of the eel ( Anguilla ).
features
Its body, like that of other eel - like tigers, is elongated like a snake. Males reach a length of up to 152 centimeters, females up to 122 centimeters. The documented maximum weight is 7.3 kilograms. The relatively long head carries the small eyes far in front. The lips are strong. Adults are brownish to blue-black with a light to white belly. Young animals have a yellowish edge on the caudal and anal fin. The caudal fin is rounded and fused with the dorsal and anal fin. The gill opening sits in front of the lower half of the well-developed pectoral fin. The lower jaw is longer than the upper jaw.
The species is very similar to the European eel ( Anguilla anguilla ), but can be differentiated on the basis of the lower number of ribs (on average 107.2 instead of 114.7) and on the basis of molecular characteristics, such as through allozyme analyzes .
Way of life
The habitat of the adult fish is in the lakes, rivers and streams of North and Central America , from Greenland to Brazil . During the day, the animals hide on the bottom of the water, at night they look for food. Insect larvae, worms, small crustaceans and fish serve as prey. The time to sexual maturity varies greatly, but is at least one to four years. The animals form a thick layer of fat and then migrate to the Sargasso Sea in the central western Atlantic . During the migration, the intestines atrophy and the anus closes. In the Sargasso Sea, the eels are likely to spawn at great depths and then die. The transparent larvae (initially willow leaf larva ( Leptocephalus ), then called glass eel ) swim to the estuaries and further upstream.
swell
- American eel on Fishbase.org (English)
- Anguilla rostrata on Texas Parks and Wildlife Department ( June 29, 2008 memento on Internet Archive )
- ↑ M. Nieddu, G. Pichiri, P. Coni, S. Salvadori, AM Deiana, R. Mezzanotte: A comparative analysis of European and American eel (Anguilla anguilla and Anguilla rostrata) genomic DNA: 5S rDNA polymorphism permits the distinction between the two populations . In: Genome . tape 41 , 1998, pp. 728-732 .
