Rare
European eels from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia make an epic journey when
it's time to mate. They leave rivers and brackish habitats, swimming hundreds
of miles across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea, an open ocean region that is
warmer, saltier, bluer and clearer than the surrounding waters.
This
trek had remained a mystery to science since no eggs or adult
eels have ever been caught in the Sargasso Sea. But researchers
recently attached satellite tags to about 600 eels from different places in
Europe and were finally able to map the route of the spawning fish.
"We
could track the satellite tags as far away as the Azores. This suggests that
the eels take a different route to the Sargasso Sea than previously thought. It
seems as if they’re saving energy by hitching a ride on the Azores
Current," researcher Kim Aarestrup, of the Technical University of
Denmark, told
youris.com.
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