Changes in Length during the Larval Life and Metamorphosis of the Freshwater Eel (Anguilla uulgaris Turt.)

Abstract

In other papers (Ford, 2 and 3) attention was directed to a study of the changes in length which occur during the transformation of the transparent eel-shaped larval clupeoid into the silvery and scaled adolescent fish. The change in position of the anus and fins relative to the vertebræ was considered in connection with the altering proportions of the different body intervals as development proceeds, and simple models were used to illustrate important features. Now the freshwater eel has its transparent larval stage and metamorphosis. As in the clupeoid, length-proportions change during development, while anus and fins undergo marked migrations with respect to the myomeres. It was therefore thought to be of no little interest to analyse the length-changes during development in a manner similar to that adopted for the herring, sprat and pilchard. Professor Johannes Schmidt most kindly supplied me with material upon which to work, and I have made much use of data already published by him in reports on his great pioneer investigations. I have also drawn extensively from the data given by Dr. Leon Bertin in his paper on the migrations of the anus in the eels during ontogeny. I may be permitted to add that much which follows is suggestive in nature, rather than proven fact. Nevertheless, it should prove of interest in its direct bearing upon questions of fundamental biological importance.