Sexual Eeling

Author: Petiver

Score: 74

Comments: 17

Date: 2020-10-29 02:59:07

Web Link

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lultimouomo wrote at 2020-10-29 08:36:59:

Do yourself a favor and read about the eel life cycle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_life_history

irrational wrote at 2020-10-29 09:41:51:

I thought the theory that eels reproduce in the Sargasso Sea was proved false? Now I need to see if I can find the article.

Edit: found it

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/where-do-eels-...

InitialLastName wrote at 2020-10-29 14:15:42:

New Yorker articles are nice, but "proved false" is strong for "we've still never seen it" (which is what the article actually says).

kwhitefoot wrote at 2020-10-29 10:03:45:

Thank you for that. It was a very moving article.

patal wrote at 2020-10-29 07:54:38:

[Freud] had to return to check his results later in the year, he chanced upon a pair of furrowed organs, hidden away in the abdominal cavity, which he identified as the much-sought-after testes of a male. With the two sexes now clearly distinguished, definitive evidence of sexual reproduction had been found; and, after more than 2,000 years, Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation could at last be laid to rest.

Ecco wrote at 2020-10-29 05:32:47:

Clever title :) One thing I don’t understand: do eels die right after reproducing? Because otherwise some should have had some visible gonads.

adamjb wrote at 2020-10-29 05:45:21:

We don't know for certain because we've never seen them reproduce. But we do know that their digestive system dissolves as they gain their reproductive organs, meaning that they lose the ability to eat once they have gonads so it seems a fairly robust assumption.

Ecco wrote at 2020-10-29 05:55:48:

Wow, that’s wild. That makes for one tough game of “would you rather”!

duskwuff wrote at 2020-10-29 06:33:50:

It's not an uncommon pattern. Consider salmon, which travel upriver to spawn then die.

silveroriole wrote at 2020-10-29 13:45:23:

And the female octopus. So intelligent, but after they reproduce they stop eating and die. (Apparently they sometimes eat their mate beforehand, which I didn’t know until now). It seems like such a waste. I count myself lucky that humans don’t follow this pattern!

kleiba wrote at 2020-10-29 07:59:44:

_Clever title :)_

...and now I will hear Marvin Gaye singing with a French accent in my head all day.

swiley wrote at 2020-10-29 12:40:01:

I wonder if this experience scarred Freud and that's why he attributed most psychological dysfunction to sexual experiences people had as children.

Arubis wrote at 2020-10-29 13:00:35:

That’s close to what the last paragraph of TFA suggests.

dvh wrote at 2020-10-29 08:53:12:

This kinda reminds me second book from Ender franchise

willmacdonald wrote at 2020-10-29 12:04:58:

On a related note I can really recommend 'The Gospel of the Eels: A Father, a Son and the World's Most Enigmatic Fish'

https://amzn.to/37YFKcy

trabant00 wrote at 2020-10-29 06:21:23:

Freud spent the next month dissecting more than 400 specimens

The determination required to produce results. And in something as remote from personal issues as eel reproduction.

xanathar wrote at 2020-10-29 09:39:27:

Considering we're talking about Freud, I'm not sure we can say "sexual reproduction" to be remote from "personal issues".