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Electric Eel Shocks Like a Taser

Posted by samzenpus on from the reach-out-and-zap-you dept.

Science_afficionado writes After a nine month study, a Vanderbilt biologist has determined that the electric eel emits series of millisecond, high-voltage pulses to paralyze its prey just before it attacks. The high-voltage pulses cause the motor neurons in its target to violently contract, leaving it temporarily immobilized in the same fashion as the high-voltage pulses produced by a Taser. He documented this effect using high-speed video. The eel, which is nocturnal and has very poor eyesight, also uses closely spaced pairs of high-voltage pulses when hunting for hidden prey. He determined that the pulses cause the prey's body to twitch which produces water movements that the eel uses to locate its position even when it's hidden from view.

7 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Incident by 2.7182 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't eel me bro!

    1. Re:Incident by mi · · Score: 2

      Don't eel me bro!

      Why not? It is a perfectly natural process.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  2. BUT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The eel came first. Shouldnt the headline read tasers shock like eels?

    1. Re:BUT... by Livius · · Score: 3, Funny

      Headline: Taser patent invalidated because of prior art.

  3. Already knew that... by bradgoodman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They describe this in the signage on the eel tank at the New England Aquarium. They even have a "shock" meter - and they tell you when it is getting ready to shock, you will see some spaced-out low-intensity pulses before "the big one".

  4. circular? by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm almost certain I read an interview with Jack Cover (one of the early inventors of these systems) in which he explicitly likened the effect to an electric eel, implying that may have been precisely on his mind when he developed the device although the similarity in the process at that point may just have been general.

    --
    -Styopa
  5. Re:Some bozo from the past called it an electric e by rs79 · · Score: 2

    Go to any decent public aquarium they have electric eel demos all the time. I saw one in the Buffalo aquarium in 1975.

    There are also electric catfish, they get to be a foot long. The eels get to be three feet.

    Also the "baby whale" and "elephant nose" fish (of which there are many many species) also have this capability, albeit very mild, they use it to find food and navigate much in the way sonar works. They're also among the most evolved and intelligent of all fishes (and make lousy aquarium pets for this reason - you can keep them but you REALLY have to know what you're doing)

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?