Don the Eel Scientist

Today we went to Room 4 to have a talk with Don the eel scientist!

He worked for a science company and studied the eels the most!

• Eels can swim backwards.
• There is a North island version called the Austrailian long fin eels.
• Long fin eels are fatter that short fin eels.
• The biggest eel was known to grow to 2 metres long.
• The ear bone of an eel is used to tell how old a eel is.
• The ear bone has rings on it and each ring is one year, so you just count the rings and that is how you can tell how old an eel is!
• The things that look like horns on the edge of the eels face is really its nostrils!
• Eels have a really good sense of smell. So if you put meat on the edge of the river a eel downstream could smell it.
• Eels teeth are shaped like arrows but they are backwards. So if you put your finger in ones mouth you would not be able to get it out.
• They do not have to stay in the water all the time because they breathe through their gills.
• Eels are really cannibals which means they will eat other eels (cannibals is when they eat meat).
• When Eels eat they spin 10 times a second!