The Shortfin eel

Anguilla Australis

Intro
The Shortfin eel is a species of Anguilliform (The eel family).
They grow up to 90cm and weigh up to 3kg!

Habitat
Shortfin eels tend to live around rocks and small plants in the
rivers and streams of New Zealand and Australia. They hide
amongst the plants to grab a passing food source.

Food

Shortfin eels have a big diet that consists of crabs, frogs, fish
and even small birds! When they get older they stop eating and
migrate downstream to the spawning grounds, which is usually
in a deep part of the stream. If you do see a shortfin eel it does
like to eat bread.

Life Cycle
Because all of the New Zealand eels have not been seen
spawning, this is a well estimated way of how their life cycle
works. The parents drop the eggs in the middle of the south
pacific ocean. An eel starts as an egg and after 17 months it
turns into a tiny organism called Larvae, the larvae drifts
towards New Zealand. After a while the larvae turns into a
Glass eel which are transparent juvenile eels. The glass eel is
hardwired to find a estuary to go into, when it finds one the
estuary will make it turn to a dark green colour.
After this they are known as elvers, the elvers will swim
upstream and find a place to live this is where they will grow
into adults. After about a decade the process restarts. Some

adults get up to the age of 60 before they die!

Super Amazing 8-Bit Eel

How does a Shortfin Eel defend itself ?

Eels will fight back by biting anything that is smaller than them,
if it is bigger than them they will run away and hide. If they
have their young with them they will do anything to protect
them, sometimes causing their own lives for their young.
Humans sometimes get attacked from eels that are threatened.

Adaptive feature
Shortfin eels are capable of wriggling over long distances of
land and then there are those teeth