Until we lose it during a storm, we sometimes forget how much we rely on electricity. Suddenly, we can’t use the lights, the television, the stove, the microwave, or the stereo. An electric eel relies on electricity a great deal, too. It uses electricity for navigation, communication, and object detection. It also uses electricity to stun its prey. These charges are made possible by three special organs in the eel’s body: the Sach’s, Main, and Hunter’s organs. The eel itself is protected from the charges by its thick, slimy skin.

An electric eel often lives in muddy, murky waters. The fact that it can’t see is not a problem, since it is surrounded by an electric field that helps it to communicate and to detect objects, including its prey. Like a swimming battery, the eel has a positive charge toward its head and a negative charge at its tail end. By touching a fish with both its head and its tail at the same time, it can produce a 600-volt shock, which is about five times as strong as the voltage in an electrical outlet in your home. An electric eel has no teeth, so it uses this shock to keep its prey from struggling and then swallows the fish whole. Because the shock of the eel is so strong, it keeps predators away.