We Don’t Know How Eels Reproduce
And we’re losing the chance to ever find out
At a time when mankind has touched the moon and explored the deepest points of our harrowing ocean, not many would think that one of the mysteries still plaguing our world has to do with the reproduction of eels. And yet this unassuming creature has eluded and beguiled us with its mystery of life. Not only have eels never been seen mating in the wild, their eggs have never been found nor have their reproductive organs been easy to find despite hundreds of dissections over thousands of years.
Many of these dissections were carried out by none other than Sigmund Freud himself. He sliced the long, slimy creatures open in the hopes of being the first to find their reproductive organs. He was so possessed by this objective that at one point he wrote, “My hands are stained by the white and red blood of the sea creatures. All I see when I close my eyes is the shimmering dead tissue, which haunts my dreams, and all I can think about are the big questions, the ones that go hand in hand with testicles and ovaries — the universal, pivotal questions.” Despite this, Freud would never find what he was looking for.
Theories during this time included everything from spontaneous conception from mud, to eels coming from beetles and horse hair and the meaty, red gills of fish. The…
