The incapacitating 600 - V zap of electric eels serves dual office : Not only does it act like a Taser , it ’s also simultaneously a mellow - preciseness tracking machine for targeting tight - make a motion prey . The finding are print inNature Communicationsthis week .
Last year , we learned that these badasses canremotely insure their quarry through water . Vanderbilt University’sKenneth Cataniaand workfellow showed that the eel produce a miscellanea of electric discharges that range from low - voltage I used for searching to high - potential drop strikes that allow them to commandeer the nerves of their target – temporarily freeze them and preventing escape . The electric eel ’s high - voltage discharge has been know to be a artillery for centuries , but its sensory role – for electroreception – has been pretermit . How do they chop-chop site target that they ’ve successfully immobilise ?
For this new subject field , Catania present fourElectrophorus electricuseels with anaesthetized Pisces that were artificially made to twinge when a current passes through their bodies – simulating the movement of real , live prey to elicit an eel attack . Sometimes it was just a fish ; other metre there was a fish and a conductive carbon rod . Discharges from the eels ’ electrical organ were recorded using electrodes in the water supply , and recording of eel conduct were made using high - speed video camera .
An eel ’s smasher , Catania found , are accurately manoeuvre by continual centripetal feedback from the high-pitched - voltage discharge . When all other sensory cues were excluded – visual , chemical , and mechanosensory ( for mechanical stimuli , such as a mite ) – the eel strike at the Pisces the Fishes only when there ’s an electrical conductor .
Pisces the Fishes twitch raise mellow - voltage , high - absolute frequency burst that steer the violent suction - eating attempt ( conduct at the director , in this case ) . All this happen within seconds ( see television below ) . Meanwhile , strikes initiate when there were no conductors had to be aborted : Since eel modify their work stoppage trajectories using conductor location , they ’d miss their object when feedback from electrical conductor is missing .
That the eel ’s high - voltage discharge is a sensory system and a weapon at the same time indicates that the predatory behavior of these sensory specialists is far more sophisticated and formidable than we antecedently remember .
Video quotation : Kenneth Catania
