What lurks in the back garden...

[Ianab]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dQNlHHkG4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66zstfCUv5c

In your back yard stream, in the middle of town. This girl would be about 4 ft long, and solid build. All the eels that reach that size are female.

[DelawhereJoe]

Don't those eels have blood so toxic 2 or 3 tea spoons worth will kill you? They should be fun to catch, just dont let your little kids or animals around them.

[Ianab]

Nope, they are actually quite edible.

But a big female like that is probably 50 years old, and almost ready to return to the sea to breed. They swim to deep ocean near Tahiti before they spawn and die, and the baby eels swim / drift back and come up the rivers again. A bit like reverse salmon.

They are a pretty aggressive fish though, with no natural enemies once they get to that size. Hence it's not afraid to be seen in daylight flopping around in a couple of inches of water. They will even leave the water and cross damp grass for hundreds of yards looking for new ponds or getting around obstacles.

[coxy]

I have seen our eels come out of the lakes and go through the grass on rainy days/night they will scare the crap out of you in the dark you think its a snake and I hates snakes 

[Texas Ranger]

Well maintained stream, there, brick lined and all.  Garden patch?

[Ianab]

Well maintained stream, there, brick lined and all.  Garden patch?

House side has a sort of retaining wall made from concrete panels, holding up the back lawn. Where I'm standing is my little "forest". It's basically little patch of waste land on the other side of the stream which I've been converting from a weed patch to a tree patch. Because it's well away from our (and anyone else's) house I'm not worried about planting some actual real trees down there.

There is an old thread some place, I should go and take some more pics and update that.

[DelawhereJoe]

Those are long finned eels right, if so the fresh blood is poisonous. Cooked the protein brakes down, I believe.

[Ianab]

Seems they do contain a toxin. I don't know anyone that's even been hungry enough to eat one raw.  :D

[DelawhereJoe]

About the most dangerous thing around my house is perhaps a snapping turtle or black widow spider, only found 3 in 11 years. I've only found 1 poisonous snake in delaware but that was last century...back in the late 80's. No bears, wolves or mt lions..just no wild places for them to live, 2000 sq mi's doesn't go very far. Theres only been 3 shark attacks in the history of the state and none of them were fatal.

[Ianab]

NZ has some weird critters because it's such an isolated group of Islands. With no native land mammals all sorts of weird critters have evolved, although many have gone extinct since humans arrived (and ate them).

But you imagine a forest with no squirrels, mice, possums or any larger animals? But with birds and insects filling all those niches.