[ajnin]

I'm surprised to learn that it is surprising that eels are fish. I mean, they live in water, they have fins, they're generally fish-shaped... What's more surprising is their incredible life cycle and reproductive journey. I'm surprised the author didn't put that in the title.

[Vinnl]

It's a brilliant title. I thought: huh, surely that's not a surprise? If that's a surprise, there must be more to eels than I know - which of course is what the article is actually about. If the title was just "eels have an interesting life cycle, actually", I probably wouldn't have realised how interesting it actually was.

[yohbho]

QI said (roll podcast title) There is no such thing as a fish, since that group is unbelievably diverse.

Strange that birds are dinosaurs, while Pterosaurs are not. Where is the bipedal fish that looks like a reptile or mamal, but is secretely a fish, too?

[mutatio]

I think it's not about diversity, but lineage. The phenotype for "fish" is so tight and well defined; a salmon is closer related to a human in the tree of life than to a coelacanth even though both are categorised as "fish".

[rzzzt]

If not fish, why fish-shaped?

[Joker_vD]

Oh, but you should not classify living beings according to their habitat and behaviour; classification based on the degree of the phylogenetical relationship is obviously superior and the only truly reasonble one.

[hatthew]

You should classify living beings according to a system that is helpful to understand and discuss the livings beings in a given context. "Fish" isn't a specific taxon in the standard biological taxonomy, but is rather a description of a specific set of common physical attributes and behaviors that is helpful to differentiate some organisms from other organisms. Regardless of official taxonomy, for 99.99% of people it's helpful to describe eels as fish.

[klipt]

Phylogenetically, land vertebrates like us are fish too - we're descended from lobe finned fish.

So technically whales are fish, because all mammals are fish!

[mkehrt]

I can't tell if you are being facetious or not.

[rayiner]

They also taste like fish lol.

[shawn_w]

Japanese style grilled eel is tastier than most other fish.

(Now I want unagi, and there's no late night sushi options where I am...)