In the span of a month, these females mate, lay eggs, and die, making it exquisitely rare to see even a single female in the wild. Ribbon eels are all born jet black males-they are protandric, changing to female only when necessary to reproduce. The female is entirely yellow and over a meter long. The male ribbon eel’s elongated dorsal fin is a screamy chartreuse-yellow and its belly is an attention-grabbing cobalt. The wiggle of its body-the undulation to end all undulations-is like my own tongue, excited to tell my husband all the minutiae of a day spent alone with our three-year-old and our infant son, Jasper last baby. When this colorful eel, hidden behind coral, detects a guppy swimming nearby and wants to chase down its next snack, it simply unspools itself, as if a piece of ribbon candy has unfolded and softened in the sea.
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