Can an electric eel electrocute a person to death? Understanding its discharge power
The electric eel is an eel-shaped South American fish of the family Gymnotidae, capable of producing an electric current strong enough to knock a person unconscious. It is the freshwater fish with the strongest discharge capability, with output voltage reaching 300 to 800 volts. Because of this, the electric eel is known as the "high-voltage line" of the water. Although it is called an electric eel, it is not a true eel, but is more closely related to species of the order Siluriformes. Let us take a look below at whether electric eels can electrocute a person to death!
Can an electric eel electrocute a person to death?
Electric eels can electrocute a person to death. The average voltage of an electric eel's discharge is more than 350 volts, but there have also been discharge records of 650 volts, and the maximum voltage of the American electric eel has actually reached more than 800 volts. Such a strong voltage is enough to kill a cow. The current produced during discharge is extremely weak, generally less than 1 ampere. Sometimes an observed voltage of 500 volts with a current of 2 amperes, that is, a short-term discharge with a power of 1000 watts. Although what is emitted is direct current, the discharge frequency can reach 300 pulses per second.
Why do electric eels discharge electricity
Some cells in the body of an electric eel are like small stacked batteries. When they are stimulated by nerve signals, they can suddenly make ion currents pass through their cell membranes. The electric eel has such cells throughout its body from head to tail, like many stacked batteries piled together. When current is generated, all these batteries (each battery has a voltage of about 0.15 volts) are connected in series, thus producing a very high voltage between the head and tail of the electric eel. Many such battery groups are also connected in parallel, so that a sufficiently large current can be produced outside the body. These currents are enough to stun or kill its prey or natural enemies.
Will an electric eel electrocute itself
The electric eel's discharge organs are on both sides of its body, and most of its body or important organs are wrapped in structures with very high insulation, so in water it is like a large battery. Electric current passes through the path with the least resistance, so when discharging in water, the current is transmitted through the water (whose resistance is smaller than that of the electric eel's body), and the electric eel will not electrocute itself. But if the electric eel is caught in the air, because the resistance of air is greater than the resistance of its body, discharging would electrocute itself. In addition, if the electric eel is injured so that the insulation on both sides is damaged at the same time, then during discharge it will short-circuit like two exposed wires.
Video of an electric eel electrocuting a crocodile to death
Electric eels discharge electricity, and most people usually do not provoke them when they encounter them, but it is different if a crocodile sees one. A large electric eel about 1 meter long was bitten by a crocodile at the riverbank. As a result, the electric eel struggled and discharged electricity, and because the water conducted electricity, the crocodile was shocked until it “glittered”, and finally turned belly up and died, while the electric eel was also bitten to death.
At the beginning of the video, a large electric eel about 1 meter long can be seen struggling at the riverbank, with a crocodile nearby watching hungrily. The person filming was a Black man, standing on the muddy riverbank nearby. At about 26 seconds, the crocodile finally could not resist the temptation and bit down, which also brought itself the misfortune of death.
Normally, after a crocodile bites its prey, it will make large movements to drag it into the water, and shake its head or roll over to tear the flesh apart. In the video, after the crocodile bites the electric eel, it not only makes no movement at all, but its entire large mouth hangs on the muddy bank, and its body keeps trembling, clearly from electric shock. After continuing for more than 20 seconds under a high voltage of several hundred volts, the crocodile clearly could not hold on, began to roll over and expose its white belly, and both its front and hind legs became stiff and motionless, apparently already dead.