Electric Eels
How they Produce Electricity
Have you ever wondered how electric eels use electricity? This article will tell you which animals use electricity, and how they use it.
How Do Electric Eels Produce Electricity?
Electric eels have three pairs of organs that produce electricity, the main organ, the hunter’s organ, and the Sach’s organ. These organs are what enable electric eels to produce two different electric discharges, high and low voltage. The organs are made of more than 6,000 electrical cells called electrocytes, that are like tiny batteries. The organs can generate more than 600 volts. That’s about 5 times the voltage of a standard U.S. socket!
When the eel is close to its prey, its brain sends a signal to the electrocytes, and they all discharge simultaneously. The sudden electrical charge will stun its prey long enough for the eel to eat it.
Why Don’t They Get Shocked?
Even though electric eels shock the animals around them, they don’t shock themselves. This is due to the fact that that the strength of a shock depends on how long the electricity is flowing through something. For a shock to stun something the size of an electric eel, it would have to last for 50 milliseconds, and electric eel’s shocks only last for 2 milliseconds.
How Do They Navigate?
Electric eels also use electricity for navigation. Since they have poor eyesight and they live in murky streams, they use a radar like system to find food and to see. They also use electricity to communicate.
Electric eels are an amazing animal that has learned to use electricity for almost all of their needs, hunting, seeing, and even communicating. There are other animals that use electricity, but none use it completely the same as the electric eel. They learned to use electricity long before humans, and still use it today. That is what makes them truly amazing.
Bibliography
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Rodriques, Aaron. "12 Animals Who Actually Use Electricity." The Dodo. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.
"9 Shocking Facts About Electric Eels." Mental Floss. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.