Anguilla anguilla

Also known as Common Eel, River Eel, Silver Eel, Glass Eel

European eels undertake one of the natural world's most extraordinary migrations, traveling thousands of kilometers from freshwater European rivers across the Atlantic to spawn in the Sargasso Sea. Beginning life as leaf-shaped larvae drifting on oceanic currents, they metamorphose through transparent glass eels and yellowish freshwater residents before maturing into silver eels ready for the return ocean journey. Severe habitat fragmentation from river dams, illegal trade, and climate impacts on ocean currents have severely threatened populations across their entire native range.