The eel lives in fresh water and estuaries and only leaves these habitats to enter the Atlantic Ocean to make its spawning migration to the Sargasso Sea. Spawning takes place far offshore, where the eggs hatch. The female can lay up to 4 million buoyant eggs and dies after egg-laying.

How do eels reproduce?

Cooke adds that the leading theory of eel reproduction is that they reproduce by external fertilization, in which clouds of sperm fertilize free-floating eggs. ... He described how males and females come into close proximity to one another, and release eggs and sperm.

Do eels lay eggs or give birth?

As catadromous fish, European eels spend most of their adult lives in freshwater rivers, streams, and estuaries before returning to the open ocean to spawn and lay eggs. As young larvae, baby eels drift around the sea for between seven months and three years.