On the origin of eels: ancient and modern biology

Malcolm HeathDepartment of Classics

University of Leeds

Leeds City Museum Lunchtime Talk23 February 2012

Eels

Where do they come from?

Aristotle(384-322 BC)

Charles Darwin(1809-1882)

Charles Darwin to William Ogle, 17 January 1882

‘I am very much obliged to you for your gift of your Aristotle. By turning over the pages I suspect that your Introduction will interest me more than the text, notwithstanding that he was such a wonderful old fellow.’

‘From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle’s merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere school-boys to old Aristotle.’

Charles Darwin to William Ogle, 22 February 1882

Carlo Mondini(1729-1803)

first observation of ovaries in eels (1777)

Szymon Syrski(1829-1882)

unconfirmed identification of testes in eels (1874)

Sigmund Freud(1856-1939)

inconclusive test of Syrski’s claim (1877)

Giovanni Grassi(1854-1925)

first observation of mature testes first identification of larvae (1897)

Johannes Schmidt(1877-1933)

first identification of the eel’s spawning

grounds (1904-1923)

How Schmidt solved the problem: larvae grow in size as ocean currents carry them eastwards from

the spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea

‘From quotations which I had seen I had a high notion of Aristotle’s merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere school-boys to old Aristotle.’

Georges Cuvier(1769-1832)

functional explanation

Carl Linnaeus(1707-1778)

systematic classification

Charles Darwin to William Ogle, 22 February 1882

‘How very curious, also, his ignorance on some points as on muscles as to means of movement.’

Charles Darwin to William Ogle, 22 February 1882

‘I never realized before reading your book to what an enormous summation of labour we owe even our common knowledge. ’

The European eel is critically endangered

(IUCN red-listed)