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Electric Eels

  • Vanderbilt University

    Biologist reaches into electric eel tank, comes out with equation to measure shocks

    Ken Catania stuck his arm into a tank with an electric eel 10 times -- the only way to get accurate measurements of the circuit created by animal, arm and water. Read More

    September 14, 2017

  • Vanderbilt University

    Electric eels make leaping attacks

    Vanderbilt biologist Kenneth Catania has accidentally discovered that electric eels can make leaping attacks that dramatically increase the strength of the electric shocks they deliver. In doing so, Catania has confirmed a 200-year-old observation by famous 19th-century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Read More

    June 6, 2016

  • Vanderbilt University

    Electric eel: most remarkable predator in animal kingdom

    Recent research by Vanderbilt University biologist Ken Catania of the electric eel has revealed that it is not primitive creature that it has been portrayed as. Instead, it has a sophisticated control of the electrical fields it generates that makes it one of the most remarkable predators in the animal kingdom. Read More

    October 28, 2015