October
21
/ 2022
Before coinage became common, people in medieval England would pay their rent using an array of everyday items. Amongst these was the remarkably unattractive, and underappreciated, wormlike eel! Few are aware that eels are vital to healthy ecosystems. They are also particularly fragile due to their complex migration and reproduction patterns, which remained a mystery up until recently. Modern research posits that European eels probably begin their lives in the Saragasso Sea, after which their larvae migrate towards Europe to enter estuaries and migrate upstream. Once sexually mature, they then migrate back to the ocean to spawn. Omnipresent during the Middle Ages, eels were found in abundance all over England, living in oceans, rivers and marshes. Though migratory eels are
