#nz longfin eel

[thecatspasta]

@fishpostings

IMPORTANT QUESTION.

Favourite kind of fish? Favourite species of fish?

Mine are eels, specifically spotted snake eels (they're very pretty) and gulper eels (they're really interesting) and green moray eels (i've seen some in the wild) with honorary mentions to nz longfin eels (i've seen many in the wild because they are everywhere, also they are some really cool fish), how about yours?

Also what are your opinions on crabs?

[clle0]

Hey, NZ mentioned!

This is your reminder that these fuckers can climb trees, ladders - whatever. They're happy to spend time out of the water, they can live for like a hundred years, nobody knows where they spawn, and they can live 980 metres below the surface of the water.

nowhere is safe.

New Zealand Longfin Eel

(source)

[anabantoidei]

I went for a hike and found some wet puppies. Very cute but keep your dogs on a leash ffs

[anguilliforme]

i know im on the people loving freaky animals website but you people need to understand that a lot of attention for animal conservation is driven by how ""traditionally cute"" or likeable animals are to the general public. yes eels ARE cute i agree! theyre my favourite animal!! i love their little faces, and the way the move, and the way they open and close their mouths with empty stares but if i mention how amazing eels are to a random person i reckon 85% of the time they give me looks like they have absolutely no idea where they're coming from.

if you showed the general public a picture of a new zealand longfin eel and a hector's dolphin (both endangered, both found only in NZ) and asked which species should get more conservation funding i can near guarantee the general consensus would be that the dolphin deserves more. just because it's more appealing to the human eye. that's why im so mad. both of these creatures are important, neither deserves to go extinct. but people don't pay attention to the slimy writhers, they like the ones that are cute or cool or useful.

this is a tired rant from someone who's getting people misreading their post, but i see it in so many conservation workers or people who work with endangered species. lovers of plants or parasites or beetles or any number of amazing species that have their plight ignored by the general public for not being one of the pretty ones. we need to separate an animals usefulness from how many people like the way it looks.

[catboybiologist]

hihi dyk what species of marine life these scrunklies are :3

+ What's your fav eel species

Leopard seal

Some kind of chimera/ratfish/rattail

Grey seal? Weddell seal?

Cusk eel possibly?

Fav eel species, at least for true anguillids, has gotta be the NZ longfin

[anomalocaris-here]

(you should definitely make a list of favorite fish)

I'm not super familiar with fish from the southwest Pacific, but here's some VERY brief reasarch:

New Zealand is home to 51 freshwater fish species, and about 1400 marine species. The region is a hotspot for marine biodiversity due to the wide range of environments, caused in large part by significant temperature differences between different regions of the country. Some personal favorite fish species from the region:

-New Zealand longfin eel (Anguilla dieffenbachii)

-Hoodwinker sunfish / Deep-sea giant sunfish (Mola tecta)

-Twister (Bellapiscis medius)

I included the articles I read below (both from the NZ government) if you want to do some further reading. Always good to see a new fish enthusiast!

And for a random fish: the chimaera!

Also called ghost sharks (they're not actually sharks), chimaera live in the deep sea and use sensory organs on their face to detect movement in lightless water. Their name supposedly comes from lines on their body making them look "stitched together".

sources:

https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/freshwater-fish/

https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/habitats/marine/new-zealands-marine-biodiversity/

https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/creaturesofthedeep_chimaera/

I know nothing about fish.

I like fish for their aesthetics. I like fish because swimmy. I like fish because cute.

I like fish because HELL YEAH BROTHERRRR THAT'S A FUCKIN FISH.

I do not have a lot of fish trivia. I want to learn more fish trivia.

I know a lot about this one species of eel, so :D

If anyone wants to give me random fish trivia and infodump in my notes, I'm open for it :3

And if anyone can tell me about fish local to Oceania/the southwest Pacific/New Zealand then PLEASE.

I should make a list of my favourite fish.

[eeldaily]

Anguilla dieffenbachii photographed by Nathanael Boehm

[bubbues]

If you aren’t constantly thinking about nz longfin eels then you better get on that

[rrroc3]

Temporary installation in Emmanuel Church West Hampstead for the upcoming exhibition at St Paul's Cathedral. This installation is only half the actual length. The finished installation is over 9 metres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4EREN20dL8

[crabussy]

HI. I have autism and aotearoa is one of my special interests you are asking the RIGHT GUY

so, since aotearoa was colonised by europeans, a lot of the food people eat is very similar to what you might have in europe or america. our stereotypical dish that countless good natured jokes are made about is fish and chips for example. HOWEVER!!!!! there are some fantastic māori meals and ways of preparing food that make me salivate just to think about... ..

this is a hāngī:

food is cooked underground for several hours and this gives everything a SUPER delicious earthy, smoky flavour. it's fucking divine and you have got to seek it out if you ever visit. definitely support māori iwi by eating from māori owned restaurants!!

https://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/maori-hangi/ this website has a little bit more info about it, my goddd its so delicious. the fried bread that is made in these frankly magical pits is so good

I've never eaten one but apparently huhu grubs (endemic to aotearoa!!) are delicious and taste like peanut butter of all things!! you can eat them raw or cooked. longfin eels or ōrea are also eaten by māori.

in terms of food just out and about in nz: pies!!!! pies pies pies we cannot get enough of them!! number one road trip meal. mince and cheese is everyones favourite but I like potato top spinach and feta because I'm special like that

also, in terms of common māori names for food: I knew sweet potato as kūmara growing up!! orange kūmara was super common in a lot of meals I had as a kid and oh my god its delicious. I'm not sure how common it is in other places but its eaten about as often as potato in nz, at least in my experience!!

side note I am not māori, I'm pakeha (european descent) so please let me know if any of this is inaccurate or could do with clarifying!!!

reblog with which of these things you already knew about aotearoa new zealand, no shame in not knowing all of them!! help me out for curiosity’s sake

1. the original māori name for new zealand is aotearoa

2. kiwi are not extinct, they still exist

3. plural of any native bird in māori is the same as the singular form (e.g. I saw three kiwi)

4. where it is on the map + its vague shape (without looking at a map)

5. the director of shrek is from nz (threw this one in for fun. I know the guy. small ass country)

6. the national anthem is half in māori, half in english

7. the only mammals in aotearoa prior to human settlement were several species of bats (+ some marine mammals)

8. the only species of alpine parrot in the world are found in aotearoa (kea!!)

9. the heaviest insect in the world is endemic to nz (giant wētā!!!)

10. the city of tamaki makaurau has over 50 volcanoes. I lived there. going back in 7 months yay yay yay

11. just. the existence of the waitomo glow worm caves. search them up.

12. often, regardless of nationality, māori words will be mixed into english sentences- I heard “puku” more than I heard “belly” growing up, despite nobody in my family being māori

13. instead of swimwear we say togs

I find it amusing how much people just seem to not know about aotearoa/new zealand despite it being pretty massive (bigger than britain, only a little smaller than japan) so I’m sharing some facts in hope that in return people will tell me whether they knew these things or not!!

[cliban]

We were DMing and you mentioned some urban legends from your area. Can you tell a few?

YESSSS THANK YOU.

Gather round children for it is....

DRABBLE TIME.

So the first is a lot of big cat sightings in NZ. There are a lot of tales of seeing black Panthers around, livestock having been killed. None of these rumours have been confirmed.

The second, is an older Maori legend, called the Moehau. This is our version of a bigfoot, skunk ape, etc. They're said to be at least 4 meters tall, with talon tipped fingers that can tear flesh and wood. There is actually a bit of evidence to support this having once existed, such as claw marks on Moa bones that were not made by their predators- Haast's eagle - instead, by an unknown creature. They have also been blamed for the death of a couple that went missing whilst spending the night in a shack. The man's corpse was found, half eaten, while the woman was found further up, her neck snapped. There have been footprints, and sightings. Makes you think, doesn't it? I used to be terrified of them XD.

My favourite is the demon eel. Or taniwha. These are probably longfin eels, which are capable of killing a fully grown man. Taniwha used to drag people down to their deaths and eat them. I mean, theres not much to say about them, except their also from Maori legend.

Another thing is the Haast eagle. These gigantic birds killed Moa as their primary food source, and were said to be capable of carrying a small child. While they are extinct, some believe they're still alive.

TIME FOR MODERN.

The Dunedin Dog Boy.

In the bush, theres always a chance that, in Dunedin, you'll be faced with an upright, pitch black mix of dog and human, with glowing red eyes. It's a game of chicken there, who can face of the longest with the dog boy, and who'll end up chased down the street with it biting at their heels.

Light orbs.

I've seen two of these myself. In NZ, on cloudy nights and early cloudy mornings, you can see small, golden orbs of light, from a distance, floating, or sometimes on top of houses, go left a couple of meters, then vanish. They dont harm anyone, dont effect anyone, and nobody knows what they are.

So those are the ones I know, I hope you like them!

[im-fairly-whitty]

-slides a corn chip- tell me, what's your eel story?

NOW I HAVE THREE (3) CORNCHIPS.

Sorry it took so long, but here’s the long-awaited eel story I hinted at in the tags of this post.

Alrighty, so when I was twelve my family lived in New Zealand for a bit, it was amazing. I live in the desert, so going to a country where there’s lush foliage EVERYWHERE boggled my mind. I fell in love with the ocean (the Raglan and Whangamata beaches are my favorites) and their ice cream, and living out of a pull-behind camper for months on end and setting up at a new beach every other night while we roamed around the islands.

I was an animal nut as a kid, and my parents Thornberried me (that’s a verb now), taking us kids on extensive hikes and birdwatching trips, so I knew the name of everything that moved out in the bush (forest) as well as the beach and loved every minute of it. 

But let me tell you about eels. 

So New Zealand doesn’t have snakes. Like at all. Because of this most everything on the island evolved to be round and fluffy and flightless. Although feline and canine and mustelid predators have made their way to the NZ wilds, the government has never ever allowed a serpent onto their islands, they even keep snake skins from being brought in. 

This means that the New Zealand longfin eel is the closest thing to a snake that they’ve got, and these guys sure are something. They grow up in freshwater inland in streams and rivers and lakes, then when they want to get it on they swim all the way out to the ocean to get a date and have some kids.

 ^^ First date, aren’t they adorable?

But anyway, as a kid I’d see these river noodles swimming in streams, mostly at dusk, when they came out to hunt. And these guys arent itty bitty either:

^^Try this on for size. 

They can get several meters long.

They’re normally pretty harmless if you’re on land, some places you can even feed them as an attraction, but if you get in the water they can get feisty. Not only that, but they’ve got several rows of tiny teeth in their mouths that point backward, meaning that if any part of you gets in their mouth…it’s not coming back out…They’ve been known to slowly mangle livestock to death that have become trapped in river gullies, pulling them apart bit by bit.

So! What’s my story? 

This is the story of when 12 year-old Wit went eeling in the middle of the night in the middle of the bush.

I was on a girl’s camping trip, a bunch of pre-teens from my neighborhood, and our camp leader and her husband were leading the way on this adventure that was distinctly non-American:

Exhibit a: We’re busting through the middle of the bush and pitch our tents in a clearing. Mr Campleader looks to the treeline and points, saying “Eh, right over there, my dogs and me got a 300 kilo wild-boar a couple weeks back.”

B: It’s the middle of the night and we’re roused from our sleeping bags, because it’s time to go eeling, eel fishing. You see, eels only come out when it’s dark, really dark, and so we go hiking off into the forest. Single file, and being as quiet as we can because Mr. Campleader has told us that there’s more wild boar roaming this part of the woods. (Boar that btw can slice open a grown man with their razor-sharp tusks.)

C: We’re all silent as we hike through the trees, and we hop a fence or two. That’s when the headlamps all get turned off, because we’re getting close to the eels, who hate light. 

“Alright, split into pairs,” Mr. Campleader says, pulling something out of his pack. It’s cubed raw ox heart, and he starts putting pieces on fishooks tied to a length of fishing line. “I’ll take you to the sinkhole once you’ve got your line prepped.”

Oh yeah, there’s a sinkhole.

“So this sinkhole,” he says, “it drops about three meters down to the water. Don’t you go falling in or they’ll start taking bites of you, just like my bro’s cow last summer. Poor thing was in the water for days, had to shoot her when they finally found her, the state she was in. Poor thing.”

Being the chronically overeager child I am, I grab a far less excited looking partner and volunteer to go first, so Mr. Campleader helps lift me over the last livestock fence and leads the two of us by the hand in the pitch black forest. 

We’re being quiet, but as I blindly follow him through the trees I hear splashes, it’s the eels hearing us coming and diving back into the water below. 

Did I mention that eels can walk on land?

Their coming of age quest to return to the ocean will lead them to go for strolls on their tiny stiff fins across paths and pastures when necessary. Or basking on the edges of sinkholes in the middle of the night. 

Mr. Campleader, who apparently can see in the dark, sits me down in the dark. He whispers that I’m at the very edge of the sinkhole, so not to move at all, and helps me toss my baited hook down into the water below, the end of the string wound around my hand.

Oh, and my partner? He sits her down behind me, and has her wrap her arms around my waist.

This you see, is to prevent me, a twelve-year-old girl, from being forcefully yanked down into the sinkhole by the very eels I’m trying to catch.

This is also approximately the point when I begin to question the wisdom of this entire situation.

Mr. Campleader goes to get the resto f the girls seated around the sinkhole and I sit in the dark for a long time with my human anchor. I’m seriously considering where my life choices have led me at such an early age, when the line in my hand twitches. 

And then the line in my hand yanks.

Already hyped on “I might possibly die tonight” adrenaline, I jolt and frantically whisper for Mr. Campleader to come. I’m still supposed to be quiet, so I let the line yank at me as I stage whisper as loud as I can. Mr. Campleader hurries over and I start to pull on my line, but then it snaps slack. Mr. Campleader pulls up the frayed end for us to see in the light of his headlamp.

“Ah, see? You left her on the line too long, all her teeth sawed through the line.”

You know.

Like fish usually do to fishing line.

It’s fine.

My line’s rehooked and rebaited, I’m applauded for getting the first bite of the night and told to call sooner if it happens again. 

Now my anchor and I are much tenser now we know they’re down there. 

And it’s not too terribly long before my hand is pulled downwards again with a mighty jerk.

Mr. Campleader crashes over as my anchor and I whisper hysterically, the line getting heavier as we try to stand and I reel up the line hand over hand as quickly as I can. He reaches over with his huge Maori arms and grabs the line, powerfully yanking it up. 

There is an image forever branded in my memory, and it’s the circle of light from his headlamp illuminating a glistening and writhing length of slimy grey muscle hanging from my fishing line. For an awful and awe-inspiring moment my eel, twice as thick around as my own neck, hangs there, and then suddenly, it drops back down into the water with a splash. 

Mr. Campleader is devastated.

“I am so sorry!” he cries, grabbing his hair, “I lost you your eel! She must have been six feet long! I should have pulled it up faster, it got off the hook, it must have been nine feet long! I am so so sorry!”

I shakily tell him not to worry about it. 

I’m suddenly very grateful not to have six feet of angry eel on my hands in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. 

No one else gets a bite the rest of the night and we eventually pack up and head back to camp. The next morning Mr. Campleader tells us he set an eel trap downstream yesterday in case we didn’t catch anything and he holds up the trap triumphantly to show a very much alive two-foot eel inside. 

I am the only one of the girls willing to go near it, so I fish the little guy out and hold him while the others gather around. You know how some people think snakes are slimy, but they aren’t? Well, eels are slimy, really slimy. they’re coated from tip to tail in a thick layer of mucus that clings to your skin when you handle them, and soon my hands and arms are covered in the slippery clear substance.

He was actually pretty docile and I was careful to hold him right, having had countless pets in my day. Picture were taken, the others tentatively touched it while I calmly held him, and then Mr. Campleader announces brightly that its time for our next activity. He takes the eel from me, cuts its head off with his hunting knife, and then shoos us away to wash our hands.  

We spend the afternoon decorating pillowcases while said eel bleeds out, hung from a nearby tree. 

You know, normal girls camp stuff.

Later that day as we pull back into town Mr. Campleader’s brought fish and chips for everyone, with a surprise side dish of the eel, who has been battered and deepfried. 

I’ve had eel and eel sauce since then, but friends, perhaps you will understand when I tell you that I did not eat a single bite of that particular eel that day.

[anguilliforme]

So between your eel talk and that electrified samurai sword video I am now stuck with Electric Feel in my head. Actually had to listen to it. Look what you've done. (I love your eel talk and I would like an eel banknote too actually 💙 also an emoji for every eels needs)

I think if there were an eel emoji there wouldn’t be any problems anymore. Peace n love on planet earth.

[anguilliforme]

Sadly not entirely accurate, but the fact that we know so much about where eels breed after such a long period of mystery is actually so amazing!

European freshwater eels actually do make the journey to the sargasso sea- with some of the furthest traveling eels swimming 9000km to get there.

[image]

The NZ eels that have been tracked show that they travel to the Tonga trench, somewhere between New Caledonia and Fiji, still an impressive hike if you ask me

[source]

Comparatively lazier, Australian eels have been tracked migrating to the coral sea:

[source]

Japanese eels will migrate to a spot near the Mariana trench called the Mariana ridge

[source]

While eels in the US and in Europe do travel far, there are some other amazing migration routes that eels all around the world will take just to breed. Obligatory image of a NZ longfin eel being tagged by Paul Franklin (left), one of the ecologists who helped to make this discovery:

So, if you think you're desperate, New Zealand eels have to swim through the South Atlantic Ocean, round the bottom of Africa, then up past most of South America, in order to have sex and breed. No wonder it's a once in a lifetime thing.

[oceanicrising]

you ever think about how dragons are like eels? No? Well now you are. Which of your dragons is most eel like either in looks or attitude(literal or metaphorical eels)

😃 i have no idea where u came from or how long ago this was sent BUT

this is my darling girl bluemoon i imagine she is like these guys 👇 nz longfin eels

bluemoon is a seer and it's said that she was trained under tidelord himself (before he left to get milk), i can just see her down there looking very eel-y as she swims through the arches of the spiral keep

yeah shes got those vibes to me thank u for making me think abt this!!

[eelpatrickharris]

Can I pet a NZ longfin eel? Would it hurt them???

they've got real sharp teeth, so i would only do it if it's a really tame eel and an eel whisperer is with you, but yes! a couple pats won't harm them.