The author does not appear to be aware of this but eels are not the most snake-like among fish.

Already the Ancient Greek and Roman authors had a classification of fish, where eels where less snake-like, because they have pectoral fins, while the most snake-like group of fishes consisted of morrays and lampreys, both of which have neither scales nor any kind of fins, being less similar to other fish than eels.

The loss of the legs and the elongation of the body, resulting in a snake-like form has happened not only in many groups of vertebrates, including eels and morrays, caecilian amphibians, snakes and several groups of legless lizards, but also in many worms, e.g. earthworms and leeches, which evolved from ancestors with legs. Even among mammals, weasels and their relatives have evolved towards a snake-like form, though they still have short legs.

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jfengel 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

I know that the lampreys are often lumped in with the fish, but the jawed fish are more closely related to us than to lampreys.

(Fish aren't a clade at all so call em whatever you want.)

	▲	adrian_b 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		That is known today, but like I have said, the Ancient Greek and Roman authors, like Aristotle or Pliny the Elder, lumped together morrays and lampreys, because for some reason in the ancient world much more attention was paid to skin and limbs when classifying animals, than to the details of their jaws. Because the Ancient Greeks and Romans used the same word for morrays and lampreys, when translating ancient texts it is difficult to decide which of the two was meant.

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yohbho 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

morray seems to be muscian, you mean moray

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dboreham 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Wait what...Earthworms??

	▲	kevin_thibedeau 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		The directional bristles for anchoring to dirt (more noticeable on the larger earthworm species) are the remnants of polychaete parapodia. Similar to snakes that occasionally have remnant claws.