It essentially curves into an S-shape to push forward across the sea. Not unlike a snake on the ground, the wolf eel uses its body to propel itself forward. It may be a vicious-looking eel, but it totally has the opposite temperament.” Threats To The Wolf Eel’s Future “Their jaws are very strong and if you got your finger in there you’d regret it. “They’ve got faces only a mother could love,” said Scott Reid of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Are Wolf Eels Dangerous?įlickr/California Department of Fish and Wildlife A wolf eel in its cave. While many people across this third of the globe might find themselves terrified by the wolf eel, these gentle giants are not what they seem. And unlike its cousins, the wolf eel slithers through a vast swathe of the Pacific, from the waters of Northern California and the Bering Sea to the Sea of Japan. However, these monsters of the deep are much friendlier than you’d ever think - and they aren’t actually eels at all.Ĭontrary to popular belief, the wolf eel ( Anarrhichthys ocellatus) belongs to the wolffish family, though this particular specimen is notably longer than its relatives. One of the most terrifying of these is the wolf eel of the North Pacific - a remarkably ugly creature that can grow up to eight feet long and sports powerful jaws and sharp teeth. Newsweek reached out to Rockhold for comment, but it's not the only time that a fisherman (or an eel!) has made the news.Ī Maine fisherman caught a pregnant lobster, gave her two fish "for the road" and threw her back into the ocean, footage shows.Ī shrimp eel took beachgoers in Georgia by surprise when it washed ashore.Īnd a long-standing state record for the largest American eel caught in Missouri has been broken after 28 years.Despite its monstrous jaws and teeth, the wolf eel is actually a gentle giant that’s even known to cuddle with divers.įew beasts strike more fear into the hearts of humans than those that make their homes in the unknown darkness.
Females can lay up to 10,000 eggs in their dens, where both the male and female care and guard them for four-to-five months while they hatch and mature. The Seattle Aquarium says that juvenile wolf eels spend their early lives in the open water: "Once they mature and find a mate, they select a den and typically spend the rest of their lives living in it." Imagine a snake slithering on the ground. While at sea, wolf eels live in water as deep as 740 feet–where they swim in deep S-shapes. Reid added that the creature is almost enamored with not being seen, with aquarium visitors getting good views typically during afternoon feedings.
It may be a vicious-looking eel, but it totally has the opposite temperament." "Their jaws are very strong and if you got your finger in there you'd regret it. "They've got faces only a mother could love," said Scott Reid, who cares for wolf eels at Monterey Bay Aquarium. However, the aquarium said wolf eels are not usually targeted by fishermen–such as the ones who carefully placed the eels back in the water in the aforementioned TikTok videos.
"You are showing me something I've literally never seen in 35 years," one user told Rockhold. TikTokers, a few of whom admitted they had never seen wolf eels prior to the video, were quite smitten with these creatures. When asked if the wolf eels enjoy eating crab, he humorously replied, "It's like an underwater crab buffet." Rockhold, in a comment under one of his videos, said even he "was kind of tripping" when he saw the eels in the traps. "That thing is so ugly."Īdditional videos apparently posted on the same day include two other wolf eels caught in traps. "Dude, are you kidding me?" said one fisherman overheard in the background. Rockhold said a big fishbone vertebra is in the eel's mouth when it was brought to the surface.
Wolf eel images professional#
The video, posted on TikTok April 14 by professional surfer and commercial fisherman Matt Rockhold, features a gray-colored creature known as a wolf eel that got caught in a crap trap during a fishing expedition in Monterey Bay. A video of wolf eels being caught in crab traps has captivated the internet to the tune of 64 million views and counting.