Much mirth as Sweden 'mourns' its oldest eel

9 August 2014 Last updated at 09:43

A European eel (generic image)

Swedes have flocked to social media to muse at the passing of "the world's oldest European eel", which lived in a well to the age of 155.

It was found dead in the southern town of Brantevik when the well owners removed the lid to show it off to visitors, The Local said on Friday.

A boy dropped it in back in 1859, when it was apparently common to use eels for keeping well water free of insects.

On Twitter, the hash tag "RIPalen" ("RIP eel") has been spawning jokes.

Here is a selection of comments on the death of the famous al (eel in Swedish), whose long life was well documented in Sweden

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Not sure why mirth is involved here - but hey, that's humans eh?

Fossil Leads To Discovery Of New Evolutionary Mechanism For Body Elongation

A third, previously unidentified reason for the extreme elongation of snake and eel bodies has been discovered by a team of University of Zurich paleontologists who published their findings Monday in the journal Nature Communications.

The lengthy, slender and flexible bodies possessed by these creatures have evolved many times independently in the over 500 million years of vertebrate animal history, the study authors explained.

Scientists had previously reported the characteristic formed in one of two ways: either through the elongation of the individual vertebrate of the vertebral column, or through the development of additional vertebrae and associated muscle segments.

Now however, University of Zurich professor Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra and his colleagues have found a third mechanism of axial skeleton elongation.

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Hospital removes 'asparagus-sized' eel from man's bottom

The unidentified man showed up at Auckland City Hospital's A&E department last week to get treatment for his embarrassing problem.

Hospital staff sent the patient for X-rays and a scan, which confirmed that the eel was lodged inside him, according to local media reports.

'The eel was about the size of a decent sprig of asparagus and the incident is the talk of the place,' a hospital source told the New Zealand Herald

'Doctors and nurses have come across people with strange objects that have got stuck where they shouldn't be before, but an eel has to be a first.'

It is believed the eel was successfully removed from inside the man, who was later discharged.

The unlikely incident was confirmed this week by the Auckland District Health Board.

'We can confirm that an adult male presented at Auckland City Hospital this week with an eel inside him,' a spokesman said.

He added: 'No further comment will be made out of respect for the patient's right to privacy.'

In 2008 a vicar claimed a potato got stuck up his bottom after he fell on to the vegetable while hanging curtains in the nude.

However, it remains unclear how the eel managed to get stuck inside the man. 

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/913057-hospital-removes-asparagus-sized-eel-from-mans-bottom#ixzz27Vb7eTxT