Early life history of the American conger eel ... - ResearchGate

487Fahay 1998). The ingression of C. oceanicus leptocephaliinto estuaries occurs regularly from May to July(Able and Fahay 1998), at the mean age of168±12 days (present study), and co-occurs withmetamorphosis and settlement to bottom habitats (Bellet al. 2003). Metamorphosis appears to have startedseveral days (68±8) before arriving in the estuary. Thepositive relationship between the age at recruitment andthe age at metamorphosis suggests that C. oceanicusthat metamorphosed at an earlier stage tended to recruitto estuaries at younger ages, indicating that earlymetamorphosing larvae are recruited earlier. Severalauthors (Tsukamoto 1990; Tsukamoto and Umezawa1990; Wang and Tzeng 1998; Arai et al. 1999, 2000b,2001; Marui et al. 2001) found the same phenomenonin temperate and tropical eels. This relationship betweenthe timing of metamorphosis and the inshoremigration of leptocephali seems to be typical for anguillidand congrid eels. 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