PORT ARANSAS, Texas — The mother of all eels is turning heads on social media! A researcher in Texas is showing off his gigantic find of an American eel that could fill up plenty of unagi rolls in your local sushi restaurant.
Jace Tunnel of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute discovered the stunning four-foot eel corpse in Rockport Beach. Sharing the discovery with the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, the nature preserve director says this is as big as an eel gets in the United States.
“Usually, you find them a lot smaller. People use them for fishing bait,” says Tunnel in a video released on the Reserve’s YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, human activities, including the building of dams, have made gigantic eel sightings like this a rare occurrence these days.
“These have almost been wiped out,” Tunnel adds. “A lot of people think they’re snakes. No, they’re a fish, just a real interesting fish.”
As for what this giant eel was doing in the ocean, Tunnel says the river-dwelling American eel heads out to sea to lay its eggs. In this case, the humungous fish likely carried about four million eggs!
