Uncovering the mating habits of eels was once a slippery endeavour, but scientists have made plenty of discoveries that reveal their secrets <\/p>
Once thought to have spontaneously spawned, the mating habits of elusive eels remained a mystery for a long time.<\/strong><\/p> European eels lead double lives that are split between fresh- and salt-water, maturing in rivers and heading to the sea to breed.<\/p> The lack of larvae in rivers led Aristotle to suggest that eels arise spontaneously in river mud, and it was only in 1922 that the Sargasso Sea (a region of the Atlantic Ocean) was eventually identified as the eel\u2019s breeding ground<\/a>.<\/p> Male and female eels release sperm and eggs into the water for external fertilisation, and the larvae spend years travelling back across the Atlantic to enter European rivers.<\/p> Uncovering the mating habits of eels was once a slippery endeavour, but scientists have made plenty of discoveries that reveal their secrets <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":43920,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it.jpg",2139,1401,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it-300x196.jpg",300,196,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it-768x503.jpg",768,503,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it-1024x671.jpg",800,524,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it-1536x1006.jpg",1536,1006,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/11\/how-do-eels-mate-once-believed-to-spontaneously-spawn-heres-how-they-do-it-2048x1341.jpg",2048,1341,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Uncovering the mating habits of eels was once a slippery endeavour, but scientists have made plenty of discoveries that reveal their secrets","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/43919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
How do eels mate?<\/h2>
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