The easy answer is that a true eel is a member of the fish order Anguilliformes, and that other eel-like fish are not. But this begs the question: what characteristics are used to place a fish in the eel order? They have a dorsal fin that is continuous with the caudal and anal fin. They have very small , embedded scales or no scales. As juveniles and adults, members of the family Anguillidae live in fresh water, but they breed in the ocean, where most other members of the eel order, including the Moray, spend their entire lives.
These freshwater eels are skin-breathers, absorbing oxygen into dense beds of capillaries that lie very close under the skin. They are "slippery as an eel" due to the production of slime. Weight: 44 pounds. Size relative to a 6-ft man:. Least concern. Least Concern Extinct. Current Population Trend: Stable. Share Tweet Email. Go Further. Animals Climate change is shrinking many Amazonian birds. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Animals This frog mysteriously re-evolved a full set of teeth.
Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. Animals Wild Cities Morocco has 3 million stray dogs. Garden eels are a type of eel you may recognize! They look like tiny flowy pencils coming out of the ground, and they burrow if they get scared.
Moray eels , which are known for having some pretty neat color and camouflage techniques. Gulper eels were recently categorized as a true eel. They have huge mouths and can expand to multiple times their size in order to ward off predators and threats.
Ribbon eels are very pretty eels that, yes, look like ribbons! Their color changes throughout their lifespan, and they turn blue and yellow as they mature. Some say that this eel resembles a dragon! Snake eels are another kind of true eel that have funky nostrils and fun colors to discourage predators from approaching them. Rather, they are a kind of knifefish that generates electricity. They are actually more closely related to catfish than they are to true eels!
Electricity is used for communication, hunting, and to harm predators. Snake eels, like the ocellated snake eel that we have at the Aquarium, get their name from their resemblance to sea snakes - some of them even have elongated nostrils that look like fangs! They use their patterns and colours to mimic venomous sea snakes, which helps to deter predators. Many snake eels also give up their fins, allowing them to burrow easily to find prey.
Snake eels belong to a family called Ophichthidae that means "serpent fish" in Greek , which is a member of the true eel order. The most noticeable feature of ribbon eels is their spectacular nose - they use massive tubular nostrils to detect the scent of any nearby prey.
Ribbon eels change colour as they mature. They start life as pitch black juveniles, with females turning completely yellow and males turning blue and yellow as they mature - like the one in our Skretting Diversity Gallery. Flamboyant ribbon eels are actually a species of moray eel. Despite their resemblance to creatures of Chinese mythology, we can assure you that they are not actual dragons. Cusk eels, including kingklip which we all know and love in South Africa, are a diverse family of elongated fishes that are characterised by fins that run the length of their bodies, much like morays, and by barbels below their mouths.
Most cusk eels are bottom-dwelling, at all depths - some even dwelling in the ocean's Midnight Zone. Kingklip and other cusk eels are all members of the Ophidiidae family, which means "snake family" in Greek. They are actually a member of the Ophidiiformes "snake-shaped" order which includes a huge variety of elongated fish - but not eels. In fact, they are more closely related to tuna and seahorses than to true eels. Gulper eels became famous last year when the weirdo below was caught on film.
These odd fish are able to expand their huge mouths so much that they can consume prey many times bigger than itself! That might sound crazy, but in the deep ocean where they dwell, a gulper eel needs to be able to consume anything it can find. Surely these alien animals can't really be eels though? Until recently, scientists thought that the order to which gulpers belong, Saccopharyngiformes meaning "small bag throat shaped" in Greek was distinct from true eels.
However, genetic studies have found that they are actually derived from more "traditional" eels, placing them firmly in the true eel family. Long, slimy and weird - hagfish meet all the requirements to be eels right?
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