Marine Creature of the Month Dec '20

 

Name: Wolf Eel

Kingdom: Animalia

Class: Actinopterygii

Conservation Status: Stable, but not classified.

Location: The wolf eel lives in rocky, shallow waters. They can be found in caves, reefs, and crevices in the Japan Sea and the Bering Sea up to North California. These areas are part of the North Pacific Ocean.

Size: These bad boys can grow! Adults can measure up to 2.4m (that's nearly 8ft!) and they weigh a whopping 18kg.

Appearance: Well, the wolf eel is certainly serving up a lewk. They possess the dappled, spotty look throughout their lives but start out with a brighter range of colours. Juveniles are orange with dark spots and they become greyer and darker colours as they age.

As they are not true eels, they have large heads. Some of you may have noticed a few pouts in the selected pictures. Those are the males! The males have much more pronounced lips than the female wolf eel. All wolf eels have protruding teeth, which are very sharp and live inside an even stronger jaw. In addition to the teeth you can see, they have molars at the back of their mouths which smash up their prey.

Their dorsal fin runs the length of their spine, all the way down to their tails. They have bones in their dorsal fin as well as in their anal fin.

Diet: The wolf eel likes to eat crustaceans, the crunchier the better. Why else would they need those teeth?! They have also been observed to eat squid and other, softer fish - especially when in captivity.

Predators: When juveniles, the wolf eel has not grown into its formidable size or jaw, so they are victim to a variety of predators. Just to name a couple, they are preyed on by rockfish and kelp greenling. The mature wolf fish, however, are preyed on by much bigger beasties. Sharks, big fish, and harbour eels all try their luck with dining on wolf eels. 

Reproductive Cycle: Prepare to aww, wolf fish are monogamous and will spend their lives living in the same cave with their partner. Awww! They mature around the age of seven and spend the autumnal months breeding. When reproducing, the male will wrap around the female as they do the deed. They can lay up to 10,00 eggs at a time.

Once laid, the male and the female curl around their eggs to make a protective nest. They bundle up the eggs into a sphere which is roughly the size of a grapefruit. Just to clarify, the 10,000 eggs are the size of a grapefruit, not each individual egg. That caught me out and I was feeling very sorry for mama fish for a minute there!

Both parents look after the eggs, only one leaving at a time to go feed. Between 91 and 112 days later, the juvenile wolf eels hatch.

Life Span: Although not verified, it is believed they live around 25 years.

Fun Facts: 

• Even when dead and decapitated, the wolf eel has the muscle reflex to chomp down on a coke can that is thrown into its mouth. Check out the video here! (TW: You do see the fish's head come off.)
• The wolf eel is not an eel. Nor is it a wolf. It's a fish. 
• The wolf eel is a curious fish and are rarely aggressive. That's not to say they don't bite people and their bite is very painful! But it is rare for them to attack.
• While waiting for her eggs to hatch, the mama wolf eel will massage and rotate the eggs. This helps them to develop and keeps them oxygenated.
• The wolf eel is a delicacy, as it has sweet and savoury white flesh.
• In Native American cultures, only the healers were allowed to eat wolf fish, known as doctorfish, as they were believed to enhance their healing abilities.
  

What has been your favourite thing about the wolf eel? Have I missed any juicy facts? Who do you want to see in next month's poll?

Listening to: Instrumental