The exceptional science trick was described for the primary time in a study published Wednesday in Current Biology.
Advertisement
When confronted with greater prey, electrical eels begin with a chew, then curl their tail round in order that it touched the prey reverse from the electrical eel’s mouth.
“There’s virtually no evidence of what electric eels actually eat”. Endowed with three electricity-producing organs, E.
Electric eels have specialized cells called electrolytes on the two third part of their body which discharges electric shocks like conventional batteries.
Catania explains how this mechanism is now supported by these new findings, are indeed fantastic.
“The eel is working the prey’s muscle groups involuntarily at this excessive price over and over till they’ll’t contract anymore”, Catania defined.
This behaviour is usually studied in eels bred in captivity, where they are fed crayfish. That’s how scientists found out that eels really know how to use their electricity. This presses the prey’s physique instantly between the constructive and detrimental poles of the electrical eel’s physique.
For a few time, biologists have known that electric fish, in general, and electric eels, in particular, use a low-voltage electric field for navigation.
To test this possibility, Catania set up an experiment to measure how the curling affects the electrical field experienced by the eel’s prey. That jives with video recordings showing that formerly struggling prey are temporarily immobilized after this form of attack.
This revealed that the “curling” attacks involve a stereotyped sequence of events. Their heads are the “positive pole” of the body, and their tails are the negative pole. Listen to how voltage increases as the eel curls its body after capturing its prey, allowing it to create even more powerful shocks.
“Each of these pulses the eel gives off is activating the nervous system of the prey”, Catania said. This confirmed his earlier findings that the high voltage volleys rapidly block preys’ muscle activity.
But during the course of study, Catania also noticed something different.
Electric eels can grow to lengths exceeding eight feet and weights of more than 44 pounds.
“Historically, electric eels have been viewed as unsophisticated, primitive creatures that have a single play in their playbook: shocking their prey to death”, says study author Kenneth Catania, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University, in a statement.
“This dual use of the high-voltage system as both a weapon and a sensory system indicates that the eels’ hunting behavior is far more sophisticated than we have thought”.
“I’m personally amazed at this animal”, said Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University. Curr. Biol., 25, 1-10.
The electric doesn’t just use the electric impulses it generates to stun its prey, it also uses them like radar to track the location of their prey in dark or murky waters.
Advertisement
Catania, K. (2014). The shocking predatory strike of the electric eel.
