Electric Eel, The (1954)

[Music] I'd like you to meet a friend of mine his name is lus electr forus electricus lunus here at the lab we just call in Joe he isn't exactly what you'd call a raving beauty is he but he has his points for one thing he's quite a swimmer notice the wave motion of the long ventral th as the waves travel toward the rear the eel is propelled forward reverse the waves travel toward the head how about ascending and descending well to ascend he merely starts waves at the center which go both ways and to descend the waves start at both ends and work toward the middle Joe is commonly called an electric eel but actually it isn't an eel at all but the fish of the carp or catfish family now the eel part of his name may not be correct but he sure came by the electric part honestly there are stories of cattle horses even human beings being killed by the electric shock of eels just like this in fact along the Amazon River Ranchers have lost so many cattle that they have what they call electric eel drives they her the eels into shallow water and then they kill them with their machetes oh yes they have insulated handles on the machetes now of course electrical impulses can't be seen But if we put an electrode at each end of the tank we can hear the electrical discharge on a loud speaker now those gentle pulses are part of the eel's radar system in some mysterious way he uses them to locate his food now so far as we know all adult electric eels are blind they have heavy cataracts on their eyes now eels feed on small fish and if it weren't for this radar system they'd starve to death now when an eel locates a fish or uh when he is Disturbed he puts out what we call the double whammy this is a terrific shock that stuns anything in the water nearby the only way you can describe Joe's table manners is to say that they're downright [Music] shocking [Music] [Music] now the electric eel unlike most fish is an air breather it must rise to the surface from time to time for air for this reason he can be quite comfortable out of water now the vital organs of the electric yel are all in the front 10 Ines of his body the rest is pure power flat and believe it or not he can generate more than 500 volts here we have a bank of 36 neon lamps we'll connect these to uh our eel electrodes now of course the eel is designed to operate in water his electrical system doesn't function too well in air but even under these conditions he should give us enough power to light the lights for some reason people seem to find it difficult to believe that a fish can put out any considerable amount of power even some of the folks here at the laboratory have been just a little bit skeptical about Joe's electrical prowess and for that reason we've asked a few of them if they wouldn't help us in an experiment will you have the group come in now please all right they you stand right over here please rest of you just line up there you're right over here Mr Hy that's fine now Dave if you'll take this please and hold it in your right hand L you hold this one that's fine now everybody join hands that's right now you're connected in series now there are five of you that means that each of you will receive just 1/5 of the total voltage of the eel now relax we'll give you the low voltage tap first you ready did you feel that was bad was it uh ladies and gentlemen I'd like to have you meet a group of confirmed Believers in electric yields thank you very much now where did that electricity come from strange as it may seem the eel's electric tissue is made up of cells very much like the cells that make up the nerves of our own bodies these cells are called electr here it's a crude model of one of these cells actually the electr pla is a tiny battery 125th of an inch thick now in a flashlight there are three cells each cell generates 1 and 1/2 volts three of them in series produce the 4 1/2 volts necessary for the lamp the eel's battery produces 1/10th of a volt 10 of them in series will produce one volt well at this rate it would take 5,000 of these to produce the 500 volts of the eel well he's got them and then some an eel like Joe here probably has 250,000 electric cells connect them in series 5,000 of them and and you have the 500 volts the rest of them are connected in parallel to build up the current capacity now each one of these tiny batteries has an electronic switch controlled by a signal sent along the nerve fiber connected to it when a eal wants to shock something it throws hundreds of thousands of switches all at once just by thinking about it but what to me is even more amazing is that when Joe's back batter has run down he can recharge them all of them in just a thousandth of a second that's quite a power plant isn't it the eels electrical system is composed of three main parts the first is called the large electric organ this is the source of the eel's main voltage now the function of this organ called the organ of Hunter is still somewhat of a mystery although scientists believe that in some way it works with the large organ in producing the double whammy this organ called the bundle of socks is to me the most wonderful it has been definitely identified as the source of those mysterious radar pulses in other words this is the power plant for the eels radar transmitter now of course a radar system must have a receiver also do you notice those pits located in rows along the front part of the eel the other night I was in New York City talking with Dr Christopher coats director of the New York Zoological Society Dr coats is the world's foremost authority on electric eels he performed an experiment recently that seems to indicate that those pits are a definite part of the eel's radar receiving system now if Joe is willing to cooperate we can perform a similar experiment here the problem is to render Joe's radar system temporarily inoperative now if we paint these pits with an insulating liquid and if these pits have anything to do with the radar apparatus Joe will find it very difficult to locate a fish well we won't go hungry this is a liquid that will wash off very rapidly all right so let's go back into your tank that's right come on out now like a good fell now we want to give him a good supply of fish all right Joe is surrounded by his favorite delicacy baby trout but for the next few moments at least those fish are just as safe as if there weren't an electric yield within a th000 miles you see Joe's radar is on the blink oh is uh transmitter's working all right he's still putting out those radar pulses actually it's his receiver that's not operating now let's think for just a moment about what that means to a certain extent we can locate objects with our ears we can tell roughly the direction from which a sound is coming you know if I were blindfolded I'd sure hate to try to catch a greased Pig simply by listening to its squeal but uh this problem compared to Joe's is relatively simple you see sound travels 1100 ft per second in air but Joe's radar pulses travel at the speed of light 186,000 m/ second this means that an electric yields radar system must be able to interpret time difference that is less than one billionth of a second this is so amazing as to be almost beyond belief yes Joe you're quite a fellow you may not win any beauty contests but you've given us a lot to think about you've given us a new understanding of the God who made us all