The terrible thing about these organized crime #poaching operations of highly threatened American Eel #elvers is that because they were seized at the airport DFO can't return them to the location the were captured, so they have to be destroyed. At 107 kg of weight this translates out to about 1.3 million elver glass eels. This is a terrible loss to their threatened populations. #fisheries#SpeciesAtRisk#eel https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-ont-elver-seizure-1.7208615
the moray eel is a fierce predatory fish with a vicious reputation, and so it "makes sense" that it has those strange and terrfiying pharyngeal jaws.
Mola mola, on the other hand, has the reputation of being bizarre, and silly, swiming on its side to imitate a manta. And yet, it also has pharyngeal jaws.
I recently took a trip to St. Kitts and Saba aboard the Caribbean Explorer II. This week long adventure was a ton of fun and I took lots of pictures! I briefly shared a preview, but here goes the sharing!
Kicking things off with a small spotted moray! There were eels on every dive, but I like this view of the sharp teeth on the upper jaw. Glad I'm not on the menu!
In medieval London, everyone from kings to peasants ate eels. But by the 19th C eels had largely become a street food.
In 1851, London imported 9.8 million live eels per year (mostly from Holland). 70% went to street vendors selling hot buttered eels in poorer parts of the city. #eels#medieval#history#london
The 16th C composer Thomas Whythorne wrote that maids go for looks, but widows have...um...other priorities. To court an experienced woman, he said, you "must not carry quick eels in your codpiece, but show some proof of being stiff." #eels#history#medieval#datingadvice
Dumaguete Day #1 is in the books and wow did we have some awesome critters to kick things off. The stars today were the ribbon eels (we saw 3 on the middle dive), the many species of shrimp, crabs, and anemonefish covering every anemone, and the two species of mantis shrimp we spotted on the last dive.