Electric Eel Kills its Prey by Curling up and Creating Powerful Shock

To envision how the eel uses its electric charge, try picturing the critter’s long, thin body as a skinny magnet.

The larger adult eels rarely bothered to curl up. If, for a few reason, the eel doesn’t immediately grab the fish in its mouth, its victim will usually recover and swim away without any apparent damage.

Catania explains how this mechanism is now supported by these new findings, are indeed awesome.

Catania says what particularly fascinates him is that the eel’s electrical system gives it what is essentially remote control over its prey’s muscles.

But for larger prey, they need to bring out the big guns.

No wonder eels can take on aliens.

The eel then would batter the prey’s body with a series of shocks that forced the unfortunate animal’s muscles to contract until they reached exhaustion, effectively paralyzing the animal temporarily and making it safe for the eel to release and reposition it.

He noticed that younger eels that were only between 3 and 10 inches in length would curl up more often during the electrical shock.

By placing the two poles near each other, with the prey trapped in between, the eel doubles the voltage inflicted. Catania realised that curling could, in theory, double the strength of their discharges by superimposing the electric fields from the positive and negative poles. A prey fish caught in between these deadly electrodes doesn’t stand a chance.

This revealed that the “curling” attacks involve a stereotyped sequence of events. Then it curls its tail around the body of its prey until the tail lies directly across the body from the eel’s head. Then they would release the fish in such a position so that it can be gobbled down.

Analysing his film footage, Catania noted that the eels curl their bodies in such a way as to align the positive and negative poles of its electrical fields in parallel with each other. In an article published online by Nature Communications on October 20, Catania reported that the electric eel has a secondary use for its high-voltage electrical system: to track fast-moving prey. This confirmed his earlier findings that the high voltage volleys rapidly block preys’ muscle activity.

This causes rapid, involuntary fatigue in the prey’s muscles, enabling the eel to thwart any escape.

Catania has made a career out of single-handedly studying the sensory abilities of weird and wonderful creatures, such as the star-nosed mole, which has an unparalleled sense of touch, and uses air bubbles to sniff out food underwater. But he believes electric eels are among the most remarkable predators in the world.

In the study, which was led by Dr. Kenneth Catania with the Vanderbilt University Department of Biological Sciences, researchers investigated the electrical output of striking eels by inserting electrodes into prey items.

“I kind of joke that it was my eel chew toy”, Catania said.

“Each of these pulses the eel gives off is activating the nervous system of the prey”, Catania said.