By mid-winter, throngs of eels meet in the depths of the distant Sargasso Sea. After making this difficult voyage, they lay millions of eggs. Soon afterward, the silver eels die where they were hatched. Their offspring then begin this cycle anew. At least 14 other species of this fish occur elsewhere in the world.
American eels range from Greenland to northern South America.
In Canada and the U.S., they may travel 1,000 miles or more up tributaries that flow into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Eels scale dams, wriggle through aqueducts and navigate subterranean streams to reach their destinations. Eels constitute one of a few fish species known as troglophiles that can live in underwater caves. My curiosity about eels developed in the 1970s when I began noticing them in the caverns of our state's freshwater springs. Generally, eels and yellow bullheads are the fish most often seen by divers in the dark zones of submerged labyrinths.