Eel or Taser?

The fish of the Amazon river basin have engages multitudes of researchers since the river was discovered. One of these rather intriguing forms of river life is the electric eel. The simple worm like creature is a scaleless Amazonian fish that can deliver an electrical jolt strong enough to knock down a full-grown horse.

Most humans in the area are well aware of just how dangerous a jolt from this eel can be, and this is why the researchers at the Vanderbilt University decided to conduct a study on this creature. The nine month study has now revealed how the electric eel uses high-voltage electrical discharges to locate and incapacitate its prey.

The electroshock system that the eel processes is remarkably similar to a taser. It has been established that a six-foot electric eel can generate about 600 volts of electricity. The eels also have astonishing speed as they were observed in videos swallowing a worm or small fish in about a tenth of a second during the science project.

Kenneth Catania from the Vanderbilt University  is a biologist who distinguished between three different kinds of electrical discharges from the eels. Catania said that these included low-voltage pulses for sensing their environment; short sequences of two or three high-voltage millisecond pulses (called doublets or triplets) given off while hunting; and volleys of high-voltage, high-frequency pulses when capturing prey or defending themselves from attack.