Electric eel

Sorry, Bat, you can't just plug an eel into a socket and make it an electric eel.

Oh, but how do they work?

And are there any electric eels in the UK?

No, my electric cousins all live in South America.

They have special organs that can give off quite a strong electric shock.

So they're like big long batteries that can swim around in rivers?

Pretty much.

In fact, when humans invented the battery, electric eels were able to help with the research.

And yet, in the fraction of a second before the larger animal reached its prey, something real and measurable and astounding passed through the water, a jolt of electricity potent enough to light a bulb, powerful enough to knock a grown human to the ground, generated entirely by a living organism with no wires, no batteries, no external source of power whatsoever.

This is the electric eel, and the story of how it came to exist, how it grows, how it hunts, how it reproduces, and what it means to the world it inhabits and to the scientists who study it, is one of the most extraordinary stories in all of natural history.

Part one: Why this animal matters.

There is a category of animal that science fiction has spent decades trying to imagine, something that manipulates energy in ways that seem to violate the ordinary rules of biology, something engineered by evolution into a form so specialized it barely resembles the common template of vertebrate life.

The electric eel is that animal, except it is not science fiction.

It is real.

It is swimming in rivers right now, and it has been doing so for millions of years.

The electric eel, known to science as Electrophorus electricus, though recent research has confirmed there are at least three distinct species within that genus, is not actually an eel at all.

Find fall your way at Ross.

Electric Eel Electric eels are a genus of neotropical freshwater fish native to South America, belonging to the family Gymnotidae.

As the only members of the subfamily Electrophorini, these creatures are well known for their capability to stun prey by generating significant amounts of electricity.

they can deliver shocks reaching up to 800 seksic volts.

Instead, they are members of the electroreceptive knifefish order, known as gymnotiformes.

which shares a closer evolutionary relationship with catfish.

For more than 200 years, the genus was thought to contain only one species.

But research in Zweitausen neuntzane led to a split into dry, distinct species.

Professional bass fisherman Carl George is coming on the show.

He's here promoting his new book, How I Won the 08 Derby with an Electric Eel.

The judges were shocked.

Okay.