name: Freshwater Eel

flavor_db_name_variants: freshwater eel

source: foodb

status: draft

food_db_id: Freshwater eel

id: 357

name_scientific: Anguilla

description: The Anguillidae are a family of fishes that contains the freshwater eels. The 19 species and six subspecies in this family are all in genus Anguilla. They are catadromous, meaning they spend their lives in freshwater rivers, lakes, or estuaries, and return to the ocean to spawn. The young eel larvae, called leptocephali, live only in the ocean and consume small particles called marine snow. They grow larger in size, and in their next growth stage they are called glass eels. At this stage they enter estuaries, and when they become pigmented they are known as elvers. Elvers travel upstream in freshwater rivers, where they grow to adulthood. Some details of eel reproduction are as yet unknown, and the discovery of the spawning area of the American and European eels in the Sargasso Sea is one of the more famous anecdotes in the history of Ichthyology (see Eel life history). The spawning areas of some other anguillid eels, such as the Japanese eel, and the giant mottled eel were also discovered recently in the western North Pacific Ocean.

itis_id: 161126

wikipedia_id: Freshwater_eel

picture_file_name: 362.jpg

picture_content_type: image/jpeg

picture_file_size: 139262

picture_updated_at: 2012-04-20T09:38:49.000Z

legacy_id: 389

food_group: Aquatic foods

food_subgroup: Fishes

food_type: Type 1

created_at: 2011-02-09T00:37:37.000Z

updated_at: 2019-05-14T18:04:23.000Z

creator_id: null

updater_id: null

export_to_afcdb: false

category: specific

ncbi_taxonomy_id: 7935

export_to_foodb: true

public_id: FOOD00357