Peach-Leaf Willow (Salix amygdaloides) Andrey Zharkikh/Flickr/CC By 2.0. ... which is shaped like a willow leaf. 3). From their spawning grounds, it takes a year or more for the larval eels to make their way to the U.S. coast. So much so that it was originally classified as a separate species of fish. By then, they’re what’s called “glass eels,” 2- to 3-inces long and eel … They hatch into this willow leaf shaped creature that looks nothing like an eel. While still in the sea, the larvae take on the shape of a willow leaf: at this stage they are also called willow-leaf larvae. The willow he describes in the book – the tree under which he fishes at night with his father as a boy – reappears in a later chapter in the willow-leaf shape of eels’ larvae. A second larval stage follows this. It is a fairly large tree … Their bodies are transparent with a distinct black eye and are shaped like willow leaves. An eel egg hatches out into a larva called a leptocephalus, a flat sliver of translucence shaped like a willow leaf and so transparent "you're barely able to see them at all," Steinberg said. Elvers are eels in the stage where they are adapting to fresh water. Along the way their bodies transform from something shaped like a flat, colorless willow leaf into the yellowish-brown and creamy white snake-like fish we recognize as an American eel. Like its common name, the leaves on this willow resemble peach tree leaves. From there, the eels — transparent and willow leaf-shaped – spend the next year riding the current to the East Coast of America. Those float to the surface to hatch. They are darker in colour ranging from grey to greenish brown. These then develop into transparent juveniles called glass eels. They continue to migrate into coastal waters … Melanophores at the tip of tail were well developed and densely branched during early ontogeny (Days 7 to 25, Fig. Some eel migrations in other parts of the world are reported to be even longer, up to three years. Like the goat willow, propagation is done by seeds, since cuttings root with difficulty, if at all. Thereafter, body depth gradually increased to yield the willow leaf-like form typical of wild eel leptocephali . The larvae, which look like small knife blades or willow leaves, are known as leptocephali. Yellow eels are adults in freshwater. Glass eels are the young larval stage called leptocephalus. Females release 20 to 30 million eggs each. Eel larvae—which are about the size of a small willow leaf—had been detected only once, in the late 1800s, in the guts of other fish. They decreased with the growth of the larvae to only a few dots by Day 100 after hatching. The Sargasso Sea is a large area of the western North Atlantic located east of the Bahamas and south of Bermuda. As adult eels mature, they leave the brackish/freshwater growing areas in the fall (August to November), migrate to the Sargasso Sea and spawn during the late winter.