Electric eels may not be the world’s largest and scariest predators, but they definitely are one of the most skilled and most powerful.
A recent study discovered that when electric eels curve their bodies, they are able to manipulate basic principles of physics and increase the shock value of the electricity which their bodies emit. This ability comes in handy whenever they are hunting prey, researchers say.
In a study issued in the journal Current Biology, Kenneth Catania, a professor from Vanderbilt University who has been studying electric eels for three years now, first noticed the electric eel’s special tactic of looping around their prey in his lab. The electric eel would position its head and tail close but these ends never touched.
Catania said he placed current-measuring electrodes into the dead body of a small fish and then lured an electric eel with the bait by dangling it on a wire. When the electric eel attacked the fish, he tugged the wire to simulate a struggle.
To gain control of the fish, the electric eel would curl itself around it and sandwich it between its head and body. Catania measured the produced current in each position of the eel and found that the current emitted when the eel curled itself was significantly stronger than its normal position.
