Image: Flickr/ravas51Professor Kenneth Catania from Vanderbilt University has proven a 200 hundred year-old yarn about electric eels that had long been dismissed as fantasy. In the early 1800s, the Prussian natural historian Alexander von Humboldt traveled through South America, using his experiences there as foundation for the books that brought him fame. One episode that particularly caught the imaginations of his fans described electric eels jumping out of the water to electrocute horses. Since then, this behavior has not been documented, leading many scientists to doubt the historian's account. Here, Dr. Catania shows that when threatened, electric eels do, in fact, leap out of the water to increase the power of their shock:
The behavior consists of an approach and leap out of the water during which the eel presses its chin against a threatening conductor while discharging high-voltage volleys. The effect is to short-circuit the electric organ through the ...
