2000Fauna of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sheetlets

The eel, Anguilla anguilla, is a fish with a snakelike body of the Anguillidae family. In all Mediterranean languages, the word for eel is derived from the word for snake, coming from the Latin word for snake, anguis. The eel is interesting because it lacks a pelvic fin and because its blood exerts a poisonous effect on human blood. At sexual maturation, the body changes color from olive green to dark brown. Females can grow up to a meter in length and males can reach 1.4 meters. Eels primarily live in seas and brackish water near the mouth of a river, as in the case of the Neretva delta. However, they can swim upriver, as far as 200 km. Eels are very hardy fish that can live for a time on dry land without food. After ten years of living in a river, when the females reach sexual maturation, they migrate in a group to the sea. Their intestines close and they stop eating. All eels cross the Atlantic Ocean and spawn near Bermuda at depths of over seven thousand meters at a temperature of approximately 17˚C. Then they die. Science has still not explained why eels go so far to spawn. The larvae significantly differ from adult eels. After three years, the immature eels swim toward the coasts of Europe and Africa. They are to be found in many European seas, from where they travel to all the large rivers, including Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. Old travel books record that the inhabitants of the Neretva River Valley have long fished for eels. Eel stew, brudet od jegulja, is a famous local delicacy. Besides the European eel, the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) is a well-known species that spawns southwest of Europe and has a significantly shorter cycle of development.