Electric Eels electric jolt could knock down a horse: Study

The electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) can deliver an electrical jolt that is similar to a Taser. The shock is surprisingly strong enough to knock down a full-grown horse, according to a report.

A new study shows that the eels use it to exert a form of remote control over their victims, causing fish that may be hiding to twitch and exposing their location.

Research conducted by Vanderbilt University Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences Kenneth Catania described the studies findings in the article "The shocking predatory strike of the electric eel" published in the Dec. 5 issue of the journal Science. The nine-month study of the way in which the electric eel uses high-voltage electrical discharges to locate and incapacitate its prey.

"It's the same way the Taser acts," said Kenneth Catania, a professor of biology at Vanderbilt University and lead author of the study. "When someone gets Tased, they are not getting stunned by brain activity. Their peripheral nervous system is being activated."

When the electric pulses are emitted within hundredths of a second, "the prey are stuck in whatever position they were in," Catania said. "They just stay that way."

"They have two modes," according to Catania. "If they are hunting for hidden prey and don't know where it is, they give out a little blip of the electricity just briefly, and the animal twitches. It's a perfect way to cause the prey to reveal themselves."

"You would have maximal muscle contractions, it completely immobilizes you," Catania said. "The eel can catch you when normally you could escape."

"It's the pure beauty of seeing an animal that has evolved to this degree of almost having superpowers," he said. "If there were no electric fish and I told you this could happen, you'd probably say I was crazy."

"People have known about electric eels since the 1700s, and they have figured prominently in the history of science. But nobody has provided the details in this paper," noted Carl Hopkins, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University.