The genus name for true freshwater eels, including the European and American eels that spend most of their lives in rivers before migrating to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.
From Latin 'anguilla' meaning eel, diminutive of 'anguis' (snake). The name reflects how Romans perceived eels as small snake-like creatures in water.
European eels have one of the most mysterious life cycles in biology—they're born in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, drift as larvae for three years, transform into transparent glass eels, swim up European rivers, live for 5-20 years, then somehow navigate back to the same spawning ground they came from.
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