European eel

High school (ages 12+)
Animals & Nature

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/european-eel

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the scientific name?Anguilla anguilla
2. What is the diet?Carnivore; opportunistic predator feeding on fish, crustaceans, insects, mollusks, and other invertebrates
3. What is a European eel and where does it start its life?The European eel is a slippery fish that travels thousands of miles. It starts its life in the Sargasso Sea, where adults are thought to spawn.
4. How does a European eel grow and change during its life?After hatching, the eel is a transparent, leaf‑shaped larva called a leptocephalus. It drifts for 1‑3 years, then becomes a glass eel, then an elver, and finally a yellow adult that lives in rivers for 10‑20 years.

Catadromous Migration: A life cycle where fish live in freshwater but migrate to saltwater to spawn.
Leptocephalus: The transparent, leaf-shaped larval stage of eels and other fish in the Elopomorpha superorder.
Trophic Levels: The position an organism occupies in a food chain, indicating its feeding relationships.