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Eels are belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 , and about 1000 . Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage and are usually .

The term "eel" is also used for some other eel-shaped fish, such as (genus Electrophorus), swamp eels (order ), and deep-sea spiny eels (family Notacanthidae). However, these other , with the exception of deep-sea spiny eels, whose order is the sister clade to true eels, evolved their eel-like shapes independently from the true eels. As a main rule, most eels are marine. Exceptions are the genus and the freshwater moray, which spend most of their life in freshwater, the anadromous , which spawns in freshwater, and the freshwater snake eel .

Description
is the heaviest of all eels.]] in a tank, 2016|left]]Eels are elongated fish, ranging in length from in the one-jawed eel ( Monognathus ahlstromi) to in the slender giant moray.
(1998). 9780125476652, Academic Press.
Adults range in weight from to well over . They possess no , and many species also lack . The and are fused with the fin, forming a single ribbon running along much of the length of the animal. Eels swim by generating waves that travel the length of their bodies. They can swim backward by reversing the direction of the wave.Long Jr, J. H., Shepherd, W., & Root, R. G. (Loot). Manueuverability and reversible propulsion: How eel-like fish swim forward and backward using travelling body waves". In: Proc. Special Session on Bio-Engineering Research Related to Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, 10th Int. Symp. (pp. 118–134).

Most eels live in the shallow waters of the and burrow into sand, mud, or amongst rocks. Most eel species are , and thus are rarely seen. Sometimes, they are seen living together in holes or "eel pits". Some eels also live in deeper water on the continental shelves and over the slopes deep as . Only members of the Anguilla regularly inhabit fresh water, but they, too, return to the sea to breed.

(2025). 9780060566111, HarperCollins.

The heaviest true eel is the . The maximum size of this species has been reported as reaching a length of and a weight of . Conger conger, European conger: fisheries, gamefish, aquarium. Fishbase.org Other eels are longer, but do not weigh as much, such as the slender giant moray, which reaches . FishBase . FishBase (15 November 2011).

Life cycle
Eels begin life as flat and transparent , called . Eel larvae drift in the sea's surface waters, feeding on , small particles that float in the water. Eel larvae then metamorphose into glass eels and become elvers before finally seeking out their juvenile and adult habitats. Some individuals of anguillid elvers remains in brackish and marine areas close to coastlines, but most of them enter freshwater where they travel upstream and are forced to climb up obstructions, such as , dam walls, and natural waterfalls.

File:LeptocephalusConger.jpg|Eel eggs hatch firstly into the larval stage. File:Glasseelskils.jpg|Larval eels become as they transition from the ocean to fresh water. File:Rostrata.jpg|As freshwater elvers, eels work their way upstream. File:FMIB 35739 Anguilla vulgaris -- Anguilla.jpeg|Mature silver stage eels migrate back to the ocean to mate.

Gertrude Elizabeth Blood found that the eel fisheries at were greatly improved by the hanging of loosely plaited grass ladders over barriers, enabling elvers to ascend more easily.

Classification
Several sets of classifications of eels exist; some, such as which divide eels into 20 families, whereas other classification systems such as and Systema Naturae 2000 include additional eel families, which are noted below.

Genomic studies indicate that there is a group that originated among the deep-sea eels.

Taxonomy
The earliest fossil eels are known from the Late () of . These early eels retain primitive traits such as and thus do not appear to be closely related to any extant taxa. Body fossils of modern eels do not appear until the , although assignable to extant eel families and even some genera have been recovered from the and , indicating some level of diversification among the extant groups prior to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, which is also supported by phylogenetic divergence estimates. One of these otolith taxa, the mud-dwelling , appears to have thrived in the aftermath of the K-Pg extinction, based on its abundance.

Extant taxa
Taxonomy based on Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes:

Order Anguilliformes

File:Anguilla anguilla.jpg| Anguilla anguilla () File:Kaupichthys nuchalis - pone.0010676.g020.png| Kaupichthys nuchalis () File:Coloconger raniceps.jpg| Coloconger raniceps () File:Conger cinereus, de nuit.jpg| () File:Moringua edwardsi - pone.0010676.g021.png| Moringua edwardsi () File:Muraenesox cinereus.JPG| Muraenesox cinereus () File:Echidna nebulosa Réunion.jpg| () File:Expl9726 (14318848139).jpg|A File:Venefica tentaculata.jpg| Venefica tentaculata () File:Myrichthys ocellatus (Serpentine ocellée).jpg| Myrichthys ocellatus () File:Serrivomer sp.jpg| sp. () File:Expn0020 (14482376376).jpg|A synaphobranchid

In some classifications, the family of bobtail snipe eels is included in the Anguilliformes, but in the FishBase system that family is included in the order Saccopharyngiformes.

The of South America is not a true eel but is a more closely related to the and .

Phylogeny
Phylogeny based on Johnson et al. 2012.

Extinct taxa
Based on the Paleobiology Database:

Commercial species
Anguilla rostrata (Lesueur, 1817)152 cm50 cm7.33 kg43 years3.7
Endangered
Anguilla anguilla (Linnaeus, 1758)150 cm35 cm6.6 kg88 years3.5 Anguilla anguilla (Linnaeus, 1758) FAO, Species Fact Sheet. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
Critically endangered
Anguilla japonica (Temminck & Schlegel, 1846)150 cm40 cm1.89 kg 3.6 Anguilla japonica, Temminck & Schlegel, 1846 FAO, Species Fact Sheet. Retrieved May 2012.
Endangered
Anguilla australis (Richardson, 1841)130 cm45 cm7.48 kg32 years4.1
Near Threatened

Use by humans
Freshwater eels ( ) and marine eels (, ) are commonly used in ; foods such as are popular, but expensive. Eels are also very popular in , and are prepared in many different ways. eel prices have often reached 1000 (128.86 US Dollars) per kg, and once exceeded 5000 HKD per kg. In , eels are popularly eaten in the . Freshwater eels, known as Kusia in Assamese, are eaten with curry, often with herbs. The and other freshwater eels are mostly eaten in and the , and is considered critically endangered.Acou, Anthony, et al. "Assessment of the Quality of European Silver Eels and Tentative Approach to Trace the Origin of Contaminants – A European Overview." The science of the total environment. 743 (2020): n. pag. Web. A traditional east food is , although the demand has significantly declined since World War II. The delicacy angulas consists of elver (young eels) sautéed in with ; elvers usually reach prices of up to 1000 per kg. New Zealand longfin eel is a traditional Māori food in . In , eels from the Valli di Comacchio, a swampy zone along the coast, are especially prized, along with freshwater eels of and pond eels from Cabras, Sardinia. In northern , , the , , , and , smoked eel is considered a .

Elvers, often fried, were once a cheap dish in the . During the 1990s, their numbers collapsed across Europe. They became a delicacy, and the UK's most expensive species.

Eels, particularly the , are popular among marine .

Eel blood is toxic to humans and other mammals,"Blood serum of the eel." M. Sato. Nippon Biseibutsugakukai Zasshi (1917), 5 (No. 35), From: Abstracts Bact. 1, 474 (1917)"Hemolytic and toxic properties of certain serums." Wm. J. Keffer, Albert E. Welsh. Mendel Bulletin (1936), 8 76–80. but both cooking and the digestive process destroy the toxic protein.

High consumption of eels is seen in European countries leading to those eel species being considered endangered.

Sustainable consumption
In 2010, Greenpeace International added the , , and to its seafood red list. Japan consumes more than 70% of the global eel catch.

File:Mortagne-sur-Gironde Civellier Mayflowers 2013.jpg|Eel fishing boat in France File:Boats to transport eels - Comacchio - Ferrara - Italy.jpg|Special boats to transport live eels File:Ålegård.gif|Eel trap in Denmark around 1900 File:Gerookte paling.jpeg| Gerookte paling ( for smoked eel)

Etymology
The English name "eel" descends from ǣl, *ēlaz. Also from the common Germanic are West Frisian iel, aal, Aal, and Icelandic áll. Katz (1998) identifies a number of Indo-European cognates, among them the second part of the Latin word for eels, anguilla, attested in its simplex form illa (in a glossary only), and the Greek word for "eel", ἔγχελυς enkhelys (the second part of which is attested in Hesychius as elyes).
(1998). 9783851246674
.. The first compound member, anguis ("snake"), is cognate to other Indo-European words for "snake" (compare Old Irish escung "eel", Old High German unc "snake", Lithuanian angìs, Greek ophis, okhis, , aži, Armenian auj, iž, Old Church Slavonic *ǫžь, all from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ogʷʰis). The word also appears in the Old English word for "hedgehog", which is igil (meaning "snake eater"), and perhaps in the egi- of Old High German egidehsa "wall lizard".
(2016). 9781482255164, CRC Press. .
(2025). 9781578062461, Univ. Press of Mississippi. .

According to this theory, the name (Βελλεροφόντης, attested in a variant Ἐλλεροφόντης in Eustathius of Thessalonica) is also related, translating to "the slayer of the serpent" ( ahihán). In this theory, the ελλερο- is an adjective form of an older word, ελλυ, meaning "snake", which is directly comparable to Hittite ellu-essar- "snake pit". This myth likely came to Greece via Anatolia. In the Hittite version of the myth, the dragon is called : the illuy- part is cognate to the word illa, and the -anka part is cognate to angu, a word for "snake". Since the words for "snake" (and similarly shaped animals) are often subject to taboo in many Indo-European (and non-Indo-European) languages, no unambiguous Proto-Indo-European form of the word for eel can be reconstructed. It may have been *ēl(l)-u-, *ēl(l)-o-, or something similar.

Timeline of genera
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In culture
The large lake of Almere, which existed in the early Medieval , got its name from the eels which lived in its water (the Dutch word for eel is aal or ael, so: "ael mere" = "eel lake"). The name is preserved in the new city of in , given in 1984 in memory of this body of water on whose site the town is located.

The daylight passage in the spring of upstream along the was at one time called "eel fare". The word 'elver' is thought to be a corruption of "eel fare".

A famous attraction on the island of (part of the ) is the bridge across a stream hosting three- to six-foot-long eels, deemed sacred by local culture.

Eel fishing in -era plays an important role in Günter Grass' novel The Tin Drum. The cruelty of humans to eels is used as a metaphor for Nazi atrocities, and the sight of eels being killed by a fisherman triggers the madness of the protagonist's mother.

Sinister implications of eels fishing are also referenced in Jo Nesbø's Cockroaches, the second book of the detective series. The book's background includes a Norwegian village where eels in the nearby sea are rumored to feed on the corpses of drowned humans, making the eating of these eels verge on cannibalism.

The 2019 book The Gospel of the Eels by Patrick Svensson commented on the 'eel question' (origins of the order) and its cultural history.

See also

Further references
  • Tesch FW and White RJ (2008). The Eel. John Wiley & Sons. .
  • Patrik Svensson (2019). The Book of Eels, English translation (2020) by Agnes Broomé, published by ecco, .

External links

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