The scaleless fish from the Amazon, better known as the electric eel, can deliver an electrical shock that is strong enough to knock down a full-grown horse. This electric shock system is very similar to a Taser, used by law enforcement.
That was the conclusion of a nine-month study conducted by Vanderbilt University Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences Kenneth Catania. The study set out to show how an electric eel uses high-voltage electrical discharges to locate and incapacitate its prey.
People have known about electric fish for a long time. The ancient Egyptians used an electric marine ray to treat epilepsy. Michael Faraday used eels to investigate the nature of electricity and eel anatomy helped inspire Volta to create the first battery.
Biologists have determined that a six-foot electric eel can generate about 600 volts of electricity, which is five times more than an outlet in the United States. This past summer scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that they had sequenced the complete electric eel genome.
Until now, no one could explain how the eel’s electroshock system actually worked. In order to do so, Catania equipped a large aquarium with a system that can detect the eel’s electric signals and obtain several eels, ranging up to four feet in length.
As the biologist began observing the eels’ behavior, he discovered that their movements are incredibly fast. They can strike and swallow a worm or small fish in about a tenth of a second. So Catania rigged up a high-speed video system that ran at a thousand frames per second, allowing him to study the eel’s actions in slow motion.
Catania was able to record three different kinds of electrical discharges from the eels: low-voltage pulses for sensing their environment; short sequences of two or three high-voltage millisecond pulses (called doublets and triplets) given off while hunting; and volleys of high-voltage, high-frequency pulses when capturing prey or defending themselves from attack.
Catania discovered that the eel begins its attack on free-swimming prey with a high-frequency volley of high-voltage pulses about 10 to 15 milliseconds before it strikes. In the high-speed video, it became apparent to Catania that the fish were completely immobilized within three to four milliseconds after the volley hit them. The paralysis was temporary. If the eel didn’t immediately capture a fish, it normally regained its mobility after a short period and swam away.
“It’s amazing. The eel can totally inactivate its prey in just three milliseconds. The fish are completely paralyzed,” said Catania.
“I have some friends in law enforcement, so I was familiar with how a Taser works,” said Catania. “And I was struck by the similarity between the eel’s volley and a Taser discharge. A Taser delivers 19 high-voltage pulses per second while the electric eel produces 400 pulses per second.”
The taser works by overwhelming the nerves that control the muscles in the target’s body, causing the muscles to involuntarily contract. To determine if the eel’s electrical discharges had the same effect, Catania walled off part of the aquarium with an electrically permeable barrier.
He then placed a pithed fish on the other side of the barrier from the eel and then fed the eel some earthworms, which triggered its electrical volleys. The volleys passed through the barrier and struck the fish, producing strong muscle contractions.
“If you take a step back and think about it, what the eel can do is extremely remarkable,” said Catania. “It can use its electrical system to take remote control of its prey’s body. If a fish is hiding nearby, the eel can force it to twitch, giving away its location, and if the eel is ready to capture a fish, it can paralyze its muscles so it can’t escape.”
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