Topic: Even Eels need a cold shower it seems.

[Sirgod]

I enjoyed the Rook and Fable thread so much, that I figured I would start another when I read this story this morning. Very interesting Animal Behavior is what this one is all about gents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29obeels.html?_r=1&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

A Little Less Mystery in the Migration of Eels

The European eel spends most of its life in rivers and lakes, but at some point it heads downstream to the ocean. Scientists are fairly certain that the eels, like their American counterparts, journey to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic to spawn, but the truth is little is known about eel migration.

“When eels are leaving coastal areas, we don’t know anything,” said Kim Aarestrup, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark. “They virtually disappear.”

But Dr. Aarestrup and his colleagues have eliminated part of the mystery of eel migration. Using small devices attached to eels, they have tracked the eels from the west coast of Ireland for part of the 3,000-mile trip to the Sargasso Sea.

Dr. Aarestrup said they used prototypes of a small tag that released at a specified date, popping to the surface and transmitting data to a satellite. The tags are four inches long, so the researchers looked at about 100,000 eels to find 22 that weighed about five pounds, which is five times bigger than a typical eel.

Eels leave the coast in the fall and are thought to arrive in the Sargasso Sea in the spring. So the researchers set most of the tags to be released on April 1. As they report in Science, that was too early: the farthest any of the eels had traveled was about 800 miles.

Dr. Aarestrup said it was possible the tags created so much drag that they slowed the fish down. If not, and the eels just naturally take longer to get there, he said, the thinking about when they spawn “would have to be adjusted.”

The data also showed that the eels swim at depths of about 650 feet at night but descend to about 2,000 feet during the day. The descent to colder waters, the researchers suggest, delays the sexual maturation of the eels until they reach the Sargasso Sea — whenever they get there.

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Kinda brings the old phrase "Slippery when wet" into a new light.

Stephen

[knightstorm]

Its also important to remember that trying to use eels to clear constipation is a bad idea.
http://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid2003-09.html

Eel Enema
2003 Honorable Mention
Confirmed True by Darwin
(Late 2003, Hong Kong) An unidentified Hong Kong resident, age 50, entered the Accident and Emergency Department of a local hospital complaining of abdominal pain. The doctor's examination revealed peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdomen. Wondering what had caused this problem, doctors ordered an x-ray and spotted what appeared to be an eel inside his colon! Could an eel be the source of his pain?

Yes, the man admitted, there was an eel inside him. He had been suffering from constipation, he told the dubious medical staff, and thought that inserting an eel into his rectum would relieve it.

The man was rushed to the operating room, where an emergency laparoscopy disclosed that a 50-cm (19-inch) eel was biting the side of his colon. The eel also had also taken a bite out of his rectum wall in transit, so to speak. After surgeons removed the animal and reconstructed the rectum, the man's pain and constipation were both cured. He was discharged from the hospital a week later.