What's with the electric eel's shocking attitude?
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What makes electric eels capable of generating electricity?
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We were filming the recovery of a trap. So we were just about to sort of wrap everything up when the cameraman who was standing in shallow water suddenly screamed and collapsed back onto the bank. He sat on the bank and he was as white as a sheet and trembling all over, shaking, and described that he'd had this huge electric shock through his foot. And we think an electric eel was in a hole underneath a stream bank. This is in rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. And the eel must have come out and essentially zapped him right near the entrance to the hole. He sat down for a long time trembling, describing it as being a very bad experience.
This is What The Duck, and I'm Anne Jones. And I've got that electric feeling. Not of falling in love. More of getting your ankles entwined with a slimy tube of fish with a taser and anger issues. I mean, it just doesn't seem natural, you know, to be able to muster a zap from within.
I was completely amazed at what this animal was capable of doing.
You and me both, Professor Ken Catania from Vanderbilt University. The difference between us, though, is that the good professor has been shocked many, many times. So what does it feel like?
Well, anyone who's been on a farm or has played around with, you know, electric fences, It's essentially that sensation, and it's not something that you would do twice.
Says a man who literally got shocked on purpose for research, but we'll get into that later.
It's not a pleasant experience. Nobody likes pain. I certainly don't.
Professor Will Crampton is from the University of Central Florida and he's also been shocked a lot.
They shock all the time. You know, the slightest bit of provocation and they were shocked.
So much so that he's kind of casual about it.
One time I was measuring the length of an electrocute's head.
As you do.
And I somehow managed to get too close and my nose touched it.
Your nose.
And I got shocked through my nose, which was not at all pleasant. Holy smokes. I've had many shocks where... I try and trap these electric eels in hoop net traps or fike nets. And these have metal loops.
A material which conducts electricity.
And, you know, you can get quite excited in the heat of the moment, touch those loops and you'll get an instant shock.
It doesn't actually sound like that. That's me. That was me.
I have been accidentally shocked a couple of times, and it's a powerful experience, so to speak. And I also ended up doing an experiment where I was intentionally shocked by a small electric eel to measure exactly the kinds of electrical dynamics. And this I was able to do by measuring the current through my arm. That was one of my more unusual publications, let's say.
Wow. Did you ever get used to that over time? The pain of it, I mean.
No, you don't get used to it. It's definitely the kind of thing where you realise it's a very efficient mechanism. But I would, again, emphasise this is one of those don't do this at home kinds of things.
This is where Ken starts to try to rationalise getting struck multiple times by Ely Lightning.
It was a small electric eel. And prior to the experiments, I had done the data collection to know exactly what is the maximum power that the small eel could give off. So I knew ahead of time the parameters, the worst case scenario of how much I'd be shocked. And it was only to my arm, so it wasn't passing through my chest.
Okay, your arm is connected to your chest, but good stuff. What is actually going on, though? How do eels generate electricity? And look, what even are electric eels?
Electric eels are really rather graceful animals.
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