This is a real, record-breaking conger eel caught by fishermen from Devonshire (Britain). The weight of the monster is almost 60 kg, and the length is more than 6 meters. A real fishing jackpot!
Let's find out more about this creature …
Eel is not an ordinary fish. Outwardly similar to a snake, it has a cylindrical shape, only the tail is slightly compressed from the sides. The head is small, slightly flattened, the mouth is small (when compared with other predators), with small sharp teeth. The body of the eel is covered with a layer of mucus, under which small, delicate, oblong scales are found. The back is colored brown or black, the sides are much lighter, yellow, and the belly is yellowish or white.
Eel comes in both freshwater and saltwater. Appearing on Earth more than 100 million years ago, first in the region of Indonesia, the eel began to inhabit the area of the Japanese archipelago - especially in Lake Hamanaka (Shizuoka Prefecture). This creature is very tenacious, able to live even without water with a small amount of moisture. Currently, there are 18 species of eel in the world.
The river eel is an anadromous fish, but unlike sturgeon and salmon, which go to reproduce from seas to rivers, the eel goes to spawn from fresh water bodies into the ocean. It was only in the 20th century that it was discovered that the eel is breeding in the deep and warm Sargasso Sea, which, being an Atlantic gulf, washes the shores of the North and the islands of Central America. The eel spawns only once in its life, and after spawning, all adult fish die. A powerful current carries the larvae of the eel to the shores of Europe, which takes about three years. At the end of the path, these are already small glassy transparent eels.
In spring, juveniles enter our reservoirs from the Baltic Sea and settle along river systems and lakes, where they usually live from six to ten years.
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The eel feeds only in warm weather, mainly at night, during the day they burrow into the ground, exposing only their head outside. With the onset of frost, they stop feeding until spring. Eels love to feast on various small animals living in mud: crustaceans, worms, larvae, snails. Readily eats caviar of other fish. After four to five years in fresh water, the eel becomes a nocturnal ambush predator. It eats small ruffs, perches, roach, smelt, etc., that is, fish that live at the bottom of water bodies.
Having reached puberty, eels rush along rivers and canals into the ocean. At the same time, they often end up in hydraulic structures, which can even cause emergency situations. But most eels avoid obstacles, crawling like snakes some part of the way on land.
Eel's taste is well known. It can be boiled, fried, marinated and even dried. But it is especially good when smoked. It is a delicacy served at the most exquisite banquets and receptions.
And then there is the Electric Eel - the most dangerous fish among all electric fish. In terms of the number of human casualties, it is even ahead of the legendary piranha. This eel (by the way, it has nothing to do with ordinary eels) is capable of emitting a powerful electric charge. If you take a young eel in your hands, you feel a slight tingling sensation, and this, given the fact that the babies are only a few days old and they are only 2-3 cm in size. It is easy to imagine what sensations you will get if you touch a two-meter eel. A person with such close communication receives a blow of 600 V and you can die from it. Electric eel sends powerful force waves up to 150 times a day. But the strangest thing is that, despite such weapons, the eel feeds mainly on small fish.
To kill a fish, an electric eel is enough to shudder, releasing a current. The victim dies instantly. The eel grabs it from the bottom, always from the head, and then, having sunk to the bottom, digests the prey for several minutes.
Electric eels live in the shallow rivers of South America; they are found in large numbers in the waters of the Amazon. In places where eels live, there is often a large lack of oxygen. Therefore, the electric eel developed a behavior pattern. Eels stay under water for about 2 hours, and then swim to the surface and breathe there for 10 minutes, while ordinary fish only need to emerge for a few seconds.
In Central Russia, the eel is not known. But in the rivers, ponds and lakes of the Baltic region, eel has always been a common fish. This also applied to all of Europe, whose rivers flow into the Atlantic. Fish have always been caught in Iceland, England, France, Italy, Germany, in the Scandinavian countries, in some of the Russian waters connected with the Baltic.
And since the time of Aristotle it has been a mystery: how is this fish born? No one has ever seen eels spawn.
It was believed that they "originate from lake silt" or that eels sometimes "turn earthworms." Ichthyologists smiled as they read their enlightened predecessors. In the last century, it was already understood that eels spawn somewhere in the salt water of the ocean. However, the spawning grounds and migration routes of snake-like fish were only traced at the beginning of this century.
Today it is known: eel larvae (tiny two-millimeter transparent creatures) appear in the water column of the famous Sargasso Sea and are part of its plankton. They rise to the ocean surface and gradually turn into flat glassy leaves - not very noticeable to predators and well adapted to ocean drift.
The means of transport for them is the Gulf Stream. Not fast, but surely the mighty current carries the larvae to the fresh water. Translucent flat "leaves" are gradually transformed into "flexible glass sticks" half a pencil in size. They reach Iceland in the third year of their journey, Scandinavia in the fourth and fifth.
In fresh water, translucent snakes turn into eels - voracious bottom predators that do not disdain either live or dead meat, eating frogs, snails, small fish, worms and plant food.
In any book about this fish, we will find the statement: eels at night on wet grasses are able to crawl from reservoir to reservoir, they can even feed on land, giving preference to young peas. The physiology of fish seems to provide such an opportunity. Eel assimilates only a third of oxygen by gills, two-thirds by mucous skin. But in a book recently translated from English I read: "Contrary to popular belief, eels do not travel on earth, but penetrate into isolated water bodies through underground streams." It was said categorically, but not convincing. What does groundwater flow mean? There are not many of them. And maybe, after all, at night on the dewy grasses? It would be interesting to hear eyewitness accounts (I saw it myself!).
In ponds and lakes, eels grow and fatty body (according to Sabaneev) fattening up to four kilograms of weight. This fish is nocturnal, during the day it prefers to lie down, “curled up in a rope” in secluded muddy and shady places. All fish have an exceptional sense of smell, the eel is among them the record holder. Experts say: "It was enough to drop a few drops of rose oil into the previously unstained Onega Lake so that the eel felt its presence." The eel finds the bait bait easily and greedily grabs it, finding itself on the hook “automatically”. It is worth a lot of effort to remove the hook from the mouth dotted with small teeth.
The snake fish is strong on the wound. Copious mucus helps to quickly heal the wound. And the blood of an eel is considered poisonous.
The vitality of the eel is great. "In a damp, cool cellar, the test eels lived up to seven or eight days."
The lifespan of eels in nature (until the time of reproduction, which also means death) is from seven to fifteen years. But in a small, no outlet, the experimental eel (according to Sabaneev) lived for thirty-seven years. This fish is very mobile. Always looking for living space. From the Mediterranean Sea, part of the eels ends up in the Black Sea and from here to some rivers of this basin. From the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea, through canals and branched capillaries of the water system, not always indicated on the maps, eels reach the Volga and some of its tributaries. But these are "lost" eels. There is no way back to the ocean for them.
It is curious that in fresh waters almost exclusively female eels are found. Smaller (up to 50 centimeters) males keep to the coastal zone of the seas or in the mouths of rivers. They expect when sexually mature females begin to slide down from fresh waters into the sea with a rune (mass) move, and here begins the joint wedding and the last journey of snake-like fish. (After spawning, eels die.)
Even in fresh water, females acquire a mating outfit: they become yellow, then silvery, their eyes enlarge. Once in salt water, eels stop feeding. The maturation of the reproductive products (caviar and milk) is due to the fat accumulated in the body of acne. Fat also provides the energy consumption of the movement against the Gulf Stream. Not very good swimmers (about 5 kilometers per hour), eels are doomed to swim to the Sargasso Sea for a long time. Their skeleton softens from exhaustion, they go blind, lose their teeth.
Some ichthyologists believe that all eels die on the way, not reaching the place where they should spawn. And their wedding odyssey always ends dramatically - "they initially do not have the strength to reach the Sargasso Sea." Who, however, spawns there? It is believed that eels spawn, which grew in the fresh waters of America and which easily get to the nearby Sargasso Sea. They are believed to supply the larvae that the Gulf Stream takes to Europe. But this is only an assumption that needs confirmation. In any case, it is still considered dangerous to catch all the eels moving along the rivers of Europe "to their death", all of a sudden some of them reach the Sargasso Sea …
Most living organisms are sensitive to water salinity. Freshwater organisms die in ocean water, marine organisms do not live in freshwater. Acne, as we can see, is an interesting exception. They spend part of their lives in salt water, the other in fresh water. But the exception is not the only one. Let's recall salmon - chum salmon, pink salmon, coho salmon, sockeye salmon, chinook salmon. It's the same story: part of life is in fresh water, and part is in salt water. But there is also a big difference. Salmon in fresh water (in clean streams and rivers) are born and slide into the ocean, where they grow into huge and strong fish, which the instinct of reproduction attracts again to freshwater rivers. Eels, on the other hand, are born in the ocean, and grow (to strive later to their homeland) in the calm fresh water of ponds and lakes.
You may ask: and how did they get here to catch eels in the suburbs? Of course, not under its own power! For many years now, large reservoirs of Central Russia have been inhabited by eels. Small ("glass") they are caught by the French at the moment when a huge number of them rush from the ocean into the rivers. In water saturated with oxygen, small eels were delivered and released by airplanes to Seliger, Senezh, to storage facilities from which Moscow drinks water. Eels here feel excellent and very ingeniously settle, taking advantage of small streams, swamps and ditches, and perhaps they still crawl over the grasses.
Eel meat contains about 30% high quality fats, about 15% proteins, a complex of vitamins and minerals. Eel contains a large amount of vitamins A, B1, B2, D and E. The high protein content in eel meat has a beneficial effect on the human body.
Few people know that in Japan the popularity of eel meat grows closer to summer, as eel helps relieve fatigue in the heat and helps the Japanese better endure the hot summer period. The fish oil contained in conger eel meat prevents the development of cardiovascular diseases.
In addition to its incomparable taste, conger eel is a source of Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as sodium and potassium, which are essential for health.
Eel has a high content of vitamin E, which is why the Japanese like to eat the so-called eel kebab in hot weather.
Smoked eel also contains a large amount of vitamin A, which prevents eye diseases and skin aging.
Separately, we can note the usefulness of smoked eel for men - the substances contained in eel have a beneficial effect on men's health.
Separately from the meat of the eel, they eat its liver or make soups from it. Since eel dishes are expensive, they are often served to guests. The gift of an eel dish can be a worthy substitute for a bottle of good wine. Eel's exceptional taste is also revealed in soups.