Re: NANFA-- American eel in TFH

Christopher Scharpf (ichthos_at_charm.net)
Sun, 04 Feb 2001 08:14:11 -0400

> From: archimed_at_netdoor.com
>> The American eel, Anguilla rostrata, in nature and in the aquarium, by
>> Christopher Scharpf, Tropical Fish Hobbyist, March 2001
>>
>> Scans of this article are at: http://www.nanfa.org/magazine/americaneel.htm
>
>Chris, what a wonderful article. I particularly liked the way it was
>structured, and the factoids at the end.

Thank you, Martin.

Unfortunately, TFH (which otherwise ran my article as written) chose to delete
the most amazing eel factoid from my list of amazing eel factoids. It's one I
have mentioned on this list before:

"Silver-phase eels do not feed. In an aquarium experiment, one female European
silver eel survived 1594 days without food. Thatıs four years, 19 weeks, and one
day!"

Maybe they deleted it because they can't condone starving an eel in captivity.
(Although you can't starve an eel that's physiologically incapable of feeding).
Or maybe they thought the claim was just too amazing to be true. For those who
doubt its veracity, here is a citation for the scientific paper I got it from:

Boetius, I., and J. Boetius. 1985. Lipid and protein content in Anguilla
anguilla during growth and starvation. Dana 4: 1-17.

Chris Scharpf
Baltimore

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