Eel Fish: Types, Pictures, & Fun Facts

Eel Fish: All You Need To Know

The eel is a carnivorous fish that belongs to the Animalia family, phylum Chordata, class Actinopterygii, and order Anguilliformes. The eel fish ranges in size up to 13 feet in length, and weighs up to 55 pounds, with a lifetime up to 30 to 70 years.

Eel fish are freshwater and saltwater fish that eat smaller fish, invertebrates, crustaceans, shrimp, crabs, and sea urchins. The most distinguishing characteristic is the snakelike appearance.

Eel fish are preyed upon by larger eels, larger fish, fish-eating birds, and (for freshwater eels) humans. Grey, black, and multi-colored colours and smooth on the skin are physical characteristics.

Eels have a slimy covering on their bodies, thus the expression “slippery like an eel.” The conger eel is the most hazardous eel species. Despite their snake-like look, these fish are truly fish.

They are ray-finned fishes of the order Anguilliformes, with the name “eel” referring to snake-like fish like electric, ribbon, and wolf eels, lampreys, and morays, as well as real eels, which number over 800 species.

The length of an eel fish can range from a few inches to 13 feet or more. Due to human overconsumption, a few freshwater species have become endangered.

Five Incredible Eel Fish Facts!

1. Eel fish have the ability to swim backwards.

2. With a length of 13 feet, the slender giant moray is the longest species.

3. A European conger eel that supposedly weighed 350 pounds was the biggest eel ever recorded!

4. The gulper (pelican) has a huge mouth that looks like a pelican’s pouch.

5. Onejaws have no upper jaws but have extraordinarily huge mouths, and none of the 15 species are longer than 7 inches.

Eel Fish Classification and Scientific Name

Freshwater and saltwater fish, such as marine morays, belong to the Anguilliform family. There are 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species in all. They are classified as Actinopterygii in the Phylum Chordata.

They’re also Teleosts, or members of the Teleostei infraclass, which encompasses 96 percent of all fish species on the planet. Conger or real eels (Conger conger) belong to the Congridae family, which also contains congers and garden eels.

True eels are only found in the Anguilliformes order. The electric eel is a knifefish that belongs to the order Gymnotiformes and the genus Electrophorus. It is related to carp and catfish. It also breathes air and lives in freshwater, unlike real species. Anarrhichthys ocellatus is the scientific name for the wolf eel.

Rhinomuraena quaesita is the scientific name for the ribbon eel, popularly known as the leaf-nosed moray or bernis. Morays belong to the Muraenidae family, but the ribbon eel is sometimes classified into its own Rhinomuraenidae family. Lampreys are jawless fish belonging to the Hyperoartia class, Petromyzontiformes order, and Cyclostomata superclass.

Various Eel Fish Species

There are about 800 species, including real eels and snake-like fish. The most hazardous species are conger, electric, fire, and muraena. Conger and muraena have powerful jaws with sharp teeth capable of dragging people, while several electric eel shocks can induce respiratory or cardiac failure in people with heart problems.

The skin of the fire eel is poisonous. The global population of all 800 species is unknown.

Eel Fish Appearance

The length, colour, mouth, and fins of different species differ in appearance. Wolf eels, for example, are wolffish with paired gill slits and pectoral fins that distinguish them from real species, but the lamprey has a toothed, funnel-shaped mouth.

All of them, however, have long snakelike or wormlike bodies that culminate in a modified tail fin that combines the dorsal and anal fins. Their jaws are similarly powerful, and their teeth are little and pointed.

Many of these species lack pelvic fins and pectoral fins. The larvae are known as glass eels because of their transparency. The name does not relate to a specific fish species, but rather to the larval stage of the fish’s existence from hatching to adulthood.

Eel Fish Distribution, Population, and Habitat

Because each species has its own distribution, they can live in either a little or a wide area. Oceans, rivers, lakes, and smaller bodies of water are all possible habitats for eel fish.

They reside deep beneath the surface, burrowing into the seafloor or seeking refuge in coral reefs, rock crevices, murky or pebbly water. Freshwater is home to the Anguillidae family of fish.

Habitat loss and climate change are putting American and European animals in jeopardy. Human overconsumption has put American and Japanese species in jeopardy, while European species are in grave danger.

Eel Fish Predators and Prey

Predators come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on the species and their size. Larger fish, seabirds (such as herons and storks), and mammals (such as raccoons and humans) consume these fish in general.

These are predominantly predatory fish that eat carnivorous foods and are occasionally cannibalistic. Smaller fish, invertebrates, crustaceans, shrimp, crabs, and sea urchins are among their favourite foods.

Insect larvae, particularly mosquito larvae, and worms are consumed by those in watery settings. Carrion is eaten by freshwater animals in addition to live prey.

Because no global assessment of all 800 species has been done, determining the population of this fish is reliant on each species.

The American and Japanese species are both listed as Endangered by the IUCN, while the European species is listed as Critically Endangered. The short-finned species hasn’t been evaluated yet.

Eel Fish Reproduction and Lifespan

These fish reproduce by dancing around each other in a huge mating group to spawn, following which the eggs hatch into glass eel larvae. Adults die once they have spawned.

To mate, freshwater animals will migrate to the sea. However, nothing is known about how they reproduce. Depending on the species, these fish have a lifetime ranging from 32 to 88 years.

The short-finned species has a life expectancy of 32 years on the low end. The American species lives for 43 years, whereas the European species lives for 88 years.

Eel Fish in Fishing and Cooking

The American (Anguilla rostrata), European (Anguilla anguilla), Japanese (Anguilla japonica), and short-finned eel are the most common commercial kinds and scientific names for each species (Anguilla australis). They’re all freshwater fish (family Anguillidae). The white-spotted conger is a common saltwater fish in Japanese cuisine (Conger myriaster).