Mondo Knows Facts
European eels breed in the Sargasso Sea
No one has watched them spawn there, only found their smallest larvae Adults cross the Atlantic from European rivers to the weedy gyre, and larvae drift back for years on the Gulf Stream. The species' exact spawning sites remain unobserved. Populations have fallen sharply since the 1980s. It sits in Mondo's animals collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
Go further
More facts like this
Some swifts stay airborne for monthsRadio tracking shows common swifts flying without landing for most of the non-breeding seasonArctic terns complete the longest migration of any animalArctic terns fly about 90,000 kilometres annually from pole to pole.Monarch butterfly migration spans four distinct generationsThe butterflies returning south in autumn have never been there before.A godwit flew 11,000 kilometres without landingThe bar-tailed bird crossed the Pacific in about nine daysNo monarch butterfly completes the whole migrationThe return journey north takes three or four generationsSalmon find their home river by smellThey remember the chemical signature of the water where they hatched
🐾 Animalsfact 134 of 200
← → to keep reading, or swipe
Tags: eels, migration, ocean
European eels breed in the Sargasso Sea: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- No one has watched them spawn there, only found their smallest larvae. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a animals fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Animals shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.