What is special about moray eels?

They have a second set of jaws in the throat

Eels Quiz: Can You Get 8 Out of 10?

For centuries no one knew where European eels were born, until the Sargasso Sea was revealed as their spawning ground, and this eels quiz picks up that mystery. Meet electric eels in the Amazon, moray eels with a second set of jaws and the garden eels that sway from the sand.

Start Eels Quiz

🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Sargasso
Where do European and American eels spawn?
Schmidt
Who traced eel larvae to the Sargasso Sea in the early 1900s?
Electric
What is an electric eel really?
Volts
How strong can an electric eel's shock be?
Moray
What is special about moray eels?
Glass
What are young transparent eels called?
Garden
Where do garden eels live?
Status
What is the status of the European eel?
Food
Which city is famous for jellied eels?
Unagi
What is unagi in Japanese cuisine?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: Where do European and American eels spawn?
Answer: Sargasso Sea
Young eels drift back on currents.
Q2: Who traced eel larvae to the Sargasso Sea in the early 1900s?
Answer: Johannes Schmidt
He followed ever-smaller larvae.
Q3: What is an electric eel really?
Answer: A knifefish, not a true eel
It lives in South America.
Q4: How strong can an electric eel's shock be?
Answer: About 860 volts
This record was set by Volta's electric eel.
Q5: What is special about moray eels?
Answer: They have a second set of jaws in the throat
The pharyngeal jaws pull prey in.
Q6: What are young transparent eels called?
Answer: Glass eels
Later they become elvers.
Q7: Where do garden eels live?
Answer: In burrows in sandy seafloor
They sway like plants.
Q8: What is the status of the European eel?
Answer: Critically endangered
Numbers have crashed since the 1980s.
Q9: Which city is famous for jellied eels?
Answer: London
They were a cheap East End food.
Q10: What is unagi in Japanese cuisine?
Answer: Freshwater eel
It is often grilled with sweet sauce.

Eels Quiz – Mysterious Long Fish

Eels are long, snake-like fish that live in oceans and freshwater. True eels include morays, conger eels, garden eels and freshwater eels. Electric eels, despite their name, belong to a different group called knifefish.

European and American eels have one of nature's strangest life cycles. They hatch in the Sargasso Sea, drift across the Atlantic as larvae, become glass eels and elvers, then live in rivers for years before swimming thousands of kilometers back to spawn.

Eel populations have collapsed because of dams, overfishing, pollution and disease, and the European eel is critically endangered. Eels have been eaten for centuries, from jellied eels in London to unagi in Japan, making sustainable management important.

What This Quiz Teaches

Ocean fans and curious readers will enjoy these questions.

Where eels spawn
What electric eels are
How morays eat
What glass eels are
Why eels are endangered

Did You Know?

Eels can wriggle over wet grass.
Conger eels can be over 2 meters long.
Eels change color as they mature.
Aristotle thought eels came from mud.
Some eels live 85 years.