Conger

• It is the heaviest eel in the world, with a record of almost 72 kg.
• It breeds only once in its life and dies shortly after spawning.
• It hunts mainly at night from rocky lairs.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat & environment

Rocky and sandy bottoms of the north-eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, from Norway to Senegal, from the shore to deep water

Birth weight

Pelagic egg; a transparent ribbon-shaped leptocephalus larva on hatching

Size at birth

A transparent, laterally flattened leptocephalus larva on hatching

Sexual maturity

Male: ~1.2 m long | Female: ~2 m long, reached between 5 and 15 years old

Gestation / incubation

Egg development is not precisely documented (a semelparous deep-water species)

Litter / clutch size

Up to several million eggs per female (an estimated 3-8 million)

Sources consulted: ScienceDirect (Iberian waters age growth study); Animalia.bio; LearnAboutNature; ResearchGate (Adriatic Sea study, Irish coastal waters study); A-Z Animals; Animals.net; FishBase

Best time: All year round on rocky bottoms and wrecks of the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, at night, when it leaves its refuges to hunt.