Better Than Human

European Eels: The Fish Whose Life Cycle Scientists Still Don't Understand

August 25, 2021 Jennifer and Amber Season 2 Episode 34
Better Than Human
European Eels: The Fish Whose Life Cycle Scientists Still Don't Understand
Show Notes

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is  a snake-like, migratory fish. Eels spend most of their adult lives as freshwater fish, but are born and die in the ocean. How they’re born and how they die scientists are still trying to figure out. And we better figure it out quickly because European eel are a critically endangered species. So no jellied eels for you. 

But first:
Jennifer tells the story of her boomer encounter in the doctor's office. And by boomer, we mean, OK boomers, the group of boomers who don’t care how their behaviors affect other people.

In the Good, the Bad, the News

The bad, Cuomo is a dick and he abandoned his dog. And Amber reads some comedic crime blotters.

The good, 4oceans Solar-Powered Beach Robot filters plastic 30x faster than humans. Then, Patagonia (the outdoor clothing company) dumps a ski resort which held a far-right fundraiser. Fuck Marjorie Greene. 

So little is known about European eels that up to 1777, we didn’t realize eels were fish and thought that they spontaneously generated in the "guts of wet soil".  Sigmund Freud couldn’t find the eel’s male sex organs and gave up on biology entirely in frustration. European eels may use magnetic fields to navigate thousands of miles through the Atlantic Ocean, but who knows why they travel thousands of miles to spawn. Lots of people like to eat European eels, so poaching and smuggling is a big threat to the species. We also have not figured out how to raise them in captivity. 

Listen now to learn about the European eel, an animal we like to eat, but know very little about.

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