Product details

Title

Life and Death

Artist

Julia Manning RE (i)

Medium

Linocut (i)

Numbered

/6

Size (WxH)

50 x 75cm

Framed

No

Ref. No

24570

Nobody has ever witnessed European eels spawning in the Sargasso Sea. No post-spawning eel has ever been captured in the Sargasso nor at any position outside of it. No dead eel has ever been retrieved in or near the Sargassso Sea. To say the act of spawning is a mystery is to understate it. Scientists believe that due to the effort required in making the migration, the fact that apparently irreversible physiological changes have occurred and the stress and damage that the act of spawning may involve, the eels die after spawning and their bodies remain on the sea bed.

We do know that a single large female eel can liberate many millions of eggs and so in a mass spawning event – if that is what happens - the sea must be opaque with eggs and milt. The fertilized eggs float to the surface and drift with the currents, heading back towards Europe.