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. (Photo : Kenneth Catania / Vanderbilt)
Electric eels apparently possess some bizarre tactics to make their zaps more powerful and efficient according to a new study.
This new study reveals how these muddy creatures of the dark that are mostly found in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, have the capacity to double the voltage of their electric jolts upon curling their snake-like bodes in order to adjust the positive and negative poles inside their electric organ.
Apart from this amazing discovery, the team of researchers also described how the eels also use these electric pulses as a radar system in order to track prey and immobilize them with strong muscle contractions where the eels use this as a remote control of some sort.
According to neurobiologist Kenneth Catania of the Vanderbilt University others may view the electric eel as primitive water creatures, lurking in the mud and just possessing one weapon by shocking their prey to death. In reality however, these cunning serpents manipulate their electric fields and voltage in a complex manner.
This new study details this unique way how eels use a position or a move that will increase or decrease their electric zap upon attacking prey depending on their size.
This works when the eel first bites its prey and then curls or coils its body around the prey in such a a way that the negative pole in its electric organ near its tail, is close to the positive pole near its head. When the two poles are now near each other, where the prey is entwined in between, the eel will now double its voltage, zapping its prey.
The prey will not die instantly but will experience a sudden, involuntary muscle fatigue that stops it from making any escape from the eel.
Catania explains how this mechanism is now supported by these new findings, are indeed amazing. He adds how the basics of physics can explain that two electric poles together can concentrate the electric field and in physiology, muscles that are used too fast for longer times can cause exhaustion, and with all these in mind, science would have never imagined that the electric eel can produce the same results.
This new study is published in the journal, Current Biology.
