From Chris Hall, Earley, Berkshire, UK
Your article on the European eel is a fascinating description of one of the world’s most unusual animals(21 January, p 42).
For most species, you can appreciate the Darwinian logic behind each of their features: the acute hearing and nimble legs of a deer enable it to escape predators, for example. But what Darwinian forces have driven the evolution of this eel?
Why not reproduce in a local river, rather than taking a 12,000-kilometre round journey? Why wait decades before making that trip, when there is always the danger of being eaten or dying of a disease in the meantime?
