The fish that can stun a horse with 860 volts
This fish can generate 860 volts of electricity — enough to stun a horse.
Which one is REALLY true about the Electric Eel?
The short version
The electric eel (which isn't actually an eel) is about 80% battery — thousands of stacked cells that fire small zaps like radar and a massive shock to stun prey. Some even leap from the water to electrify threats.
Why it's so weird
- ✓The Electric Eel can generate up to 860 volts — enough to stun a horse.
- ✓The Electric Eel is about 80% battery, made of thousands of stacked power cells.
- ✓The Electric Eel fires small zaps like radar to find hiding in murky water.
- ✓The Electric Eel can leap out of the water to deliver a stronger shock, and never shocks itself.
The Electric Eel is about 2.0× as long as a 7-year-old! 🤯
The full story
This fish can generate eight hundred and sixty volts of electricity, which is more than enough to stun a full-grown horse. Meet the electric eel, which, weirdly, is not actually an eel at all. About eighty percent of its entire body is basically one giant living battery, packed with thousands of special cells that stack up like tiny power plants. It fires off small zaps almost like radar to find prey hiding in the murky water, and then hits them with one massive shock to stun them. Some have even been filmed leaping straight up out of the water to electrify a threat directly, which delivers a far more powerful jolt. And amazingly, it can fire these shocks again and again without ever electrocuting its own body. It is, quite literally, a living taser. Follow for more weird animals.
An electric eel's body is packed with thousands of special cells called electrocytes, lined up like the cells inside a battery. Each one is a flat, modified muscle cell that makes only a tiny voltage (about 0.15 volts), but when the eel's brain sends a signal, it releases a chemical that opens tiny gates in the cells so sodium particles rush in and flip each cell's charge. Because all the cells fire at the exact same instant and are stacked in a long line, their tiny voltages add up into one huge jolt of up to 860 volts. The eel also has organs that send out gentle electric pulses, and it senses how those pulses bend around hidden fish, which is how it 'sees' prey in muddy water.
📚 Source: Electric eel - Wikipedia ↗Biologist Kenneth Catania at Vanderbilt University filmed eels in his lab with high-speed cameras and an instrumented conductor (and even his own arm), measuring that leaping eels press their charged chin against a target so the current rises the higher they jump, proving the leap aims the shock instead of letting it spread out in the water (published in PNAS, 2016).
📚 Source: Electric eels make leaping attacks - Vanderbilt University ↗Watch the 45-second version
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“The Electric Eel can generate up to 860 volts — enough to stun a horse.”
“The Electric Eel has the largest teeth of any fish on Earth relative to its body size.”
“The Electric Eel is about 80% battery, made of thousands of stacked power cells.”