What is this? Location is Iceland
Posted by Govlin_@reddit | marinebiology | View on Reddit | 7 comments
Kids at my summer camp found this in the sea. They thought they were worms but the move weird and have two eyes and a mouth.
vitki@reddit
Þetta líta út fyrir að vera ungir álar. https://www.hafogvatn.is/is/sjavardyr/all
Eruð þið á Austurlandi eða Suðurlandi?
Mjög spennandi fundur. Þeir eru taldir í útrýmingarhættu, ég vona að þeir hafi komist aftur í sjóinn þar sem þeir veiddust heilir á höldnu.
CaptainNapalmV@reddit
Elver
Practical_Defiance@reddit
Oooh those are endangered! They have a crazy life span and spawning pattern, similar to Salmon. They live a good chunk of their life in the ocean and travel to freshwater for parts of their lives to spawn. If you found them in Iceland in freshwater, they’re around the midpoint of their life cycle! Cool find! Put them back where you found them tho
Fishnstuff@reddit
These guys are actually quite young! They have just entered the river and are called “elvers” at this life stage. They’re climbing upstream where they will settle for 10-30 years in their “yellow phase”, once ready to breed, they transition to a “silver phase” eel and migrate downstream and to the Sargasso Sea. They all breed there…somehow, somewhere, we don’t actually know how! Then the larvae come back to the streams and repeat!
Fishnstuff@reddit
American or European Eel. Anguilla rostrata or Anguilla anguilla.
This is a really cool educational moment for the kiddos. They have a super interesting life history and are hardy creatures. Look up how they breed and tell the kids!
LaDreadPirateRoberta@reddit
The Blue Machine by Helen Cserski has a really good segment on how they migrate.
noraetic@reddit
Young eel? Iceland has apparently both American and European eel.