Adults of the American Eel can live in both fresh and salt water. All Anguillidae return to the sea to spawn. American Eels migrate to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. At the approach of sexual maturity, which takes place in the fall, the eels that are in fresh water move downstream, traveling mostly at night. They cease feeding, as do those that have been living in the river mouths, bays, and estuaries; the color of the back changes from olive to almost black, the ventral side turns silvery, and the eyes of the males grow to twice their previous size. Both males and females then move out to sea, and it is not until after they reach salt water that the ovaries mature. The American Eel spawns in midwinter, thus occupying one to two months in its journey from the coast to the spawning ground, eels like pacific salmon, die after spawning.The larval eels are small transparent "leptocephalus" which drift in the North Atlantic gyre. Eels born to European parents circulate to European waters while American leptocephali metamorpose earlier. The drifting larvae transform into small transparent, free-swimming elvers known as "glass eels"

American eels can reach lengths of up to 5 feet. Females are larger than males.

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Robins, C. Richard, Ray, G. Carleton, Douglass, John, 1986, A Field Guide to Atlantic Coast Fishes of North America, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston