ABSTRACT
The present chapter fi rstly describes the food and feeding behavior during three of the four developmental stages in the life cycle of eels, leptocephalus, elver, and yellow eel stages but because it is generally accepted that mature or silver eels do not feed (Tesch 2003; Chow et al. 2010), this stage in the life cycle is not described here. To refl ect the diversity in feeding ecology during the yellow eel stage, the present chapter also contains sections on food composition in relation to environment/habitat, temperature effects, feeding habits and body size. Subsequent sections describe interactions of eels with other species followed by a section summarizing current knowledge for anguillid species for which information covering the entire post-elver feeding ecology is limited. Finally, the chapter concludes with a section summarizing the patterns common to the feeding ecology of anguillid eel species.
