Historically, this included, all accessible freshwater habitats, estuaries, and coastal marine waters in Canada that were connected to the Atlantic Ocean up to the mid-Labrador coast. While some individuals remain in brackish or coastal saltwater systems close to shore their whole lives, the American Eel is mostly found in inland freshwater habitats with some connection to saltwater. They migrate to coastal and inland areas as they grow. The American Eel spawns exclusively in the Sargasso Sea, an area in the south of the North Atlantic Ocean. In saltwater or brackish areas, the eel can be found in shallow, protected waters of the continental shelf, sometimes in areas with eelgrass beds. Eels regularly burrow into sand and mud to hide completely. During the day and when the eels are younger (and therefore smaller), eels will use the substrate (rock, sand and mud), rock piles and woody debris (like logs and snags) at the bottom of the water, or aquatic vegetation, to hide from predators. The American Eel can become prey to other fish and birds at any point of its life-cycle, in either fresh or saltwater. This calm, warm-water area is created by circulating ocean currents creating a gyre where seaweeds float at the surface. When it’s spawning, every single American Eel, whether it migrated to live in freshwater or not, travels offshore to a specific area of the Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea. When the water temperature goes below 5 ☌, eels burrow in the substrate and go into state of torpor, or complete inactivity. Previously, eels were only thought to overwinter in shallow bays. Some eels have been found to spend the winter in depths greater than 10 m. In fact, it’s thought to occupy the broadest range of habitats of any fish in the world! While a majority of eels spend most of their lives in freshwater lakes and rivers, some remain in salt or brackish water (where salt and freshwater mix) close to the coast.ĭuring the winter, in saltwater or brackish water, eels will find shelter in the mud at the bottom of estuaries and bays, but we don’t know much about the eels’ habitat in freshwater during the cold season. Throughout its lifecycle, the American Eel will use a wide variety of habitats. Both have similar lifecycles but different distributions in freshwater systems except in Iceland, where both (and hybrids of both species) can be found. The American Eel is the only representative of its genus (or group of related species) in North America, but it does have a close relative which shares the same spawning area: the European Eel. In Indigenous languages, like Mi’kmaq, it is known as k’at or g’at, the Algonquins call it pimzi or pimizi, in Ojibwe bimizi, in Cree Kinebikoinkosew and the Seneca call it goda:noh. It is known by a variety of names in Canada, including: the Atlantic Eel, the Common Eel, the Silver Eel, the Yellow Eel, the Bronze Eel and Easgann in Irish Gaelic.
Large females turn dark grey or silver when they mature. Females are lighter in colour than males. Adult eels vary in coloration, from olive green and brown to greenish-yellow, with a light gray or white belly. With its small pectoral fins right behind its gills, absence of pelvic fins, long dorsal and ventral fins and the thin coat of mucus on its tiny scales, the adult eel slightly resembles a slimy snake but are in fact true fish. Males tend to be smaller than females, reaching a size of about 0.4 m. It is a long, slender fish that can grow longer than one metre in length and 7.5 kilograms in weight. The American Eel can live as long as 50 years. It is born in saltwater and migrating to freshwater to grow and mature before returning to saltwater to spawn and die. But its life-cycle is exactly the reverse of salmon’s: the eel is a catadromous species. Like salmon, it lives both in freshwater and saltwater.
The American Eel ( Anguilla rostrata) is a fascinating migratory fish with a very complex life cycle.
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