How does electric eel produce electricity?
Dibakar Parida, Chennai ANSWER: Each animal that hunts for its food depends upon definite cues in the search. For this they develop special adaptations which help to increase biotic potential. Although almost any individual kind of animal demonstrates such adaptations in sensory mechanisms related to food acquisition, some are sufficiently spectacular to earn special mention. One such is the sensory adaptations found in certain members of Teleost fishes, which have independently developed organs, which produce electricity. These are used for defense, the capture of prey and perhaps as direction finders. The best-known is the so called Electric `eel’ (Electrophorus) a blind, superficially eel-like fish which grows to a length of about eight feet, and is almost as thick as a man’s thigh and lives in shallow muddy parts of the Amazon and other South American rivers. On land Electrophorus can discharge about 500 volts. In water the charge is partly short circuited and the shock is about 25
