It’s been an exciting few days at Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Our baby wolf-eels are hatching!
Our aquarists have so far collected about 250 wolf-eels from the mass of eggs, with another few hundred expected to hatch over the next two weeks. The tiny fish are born brownish-pink, about 1 1/2 inches in length. They begin to turn dark gray within a day or so, and begin snacking on tiny shrimp after a few days. They will grow to several feet in length.
Check out the video below of aquarist Mark Ball overseeing the hatching!
Newly hatched wolf-eels
The mother wolf-eel guards her mass of eggs in January 2011.
Wolf-eel eggs one week after they were laid.
wolf eel babies are awesome. thanks, mark ball
Who would have thought that those little wolf-eels would grow up to be as huge as their mother. Thanks for sharing these interesting photos and video of wolf-eels.
Wow – never would have thought squeezing the eggs would have the desired result…nature truly is amazing, thanks for the video.
Jeff
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