What If You Fall Into Pool Of Eels

First Lets Learn How Fish Produce Electricity?

In 1800, the explorer Alexander von Humboldt witnessed a swarm of electric eels surged out of the water to defend themselves against coming horses. Most people thought the story so unexpected, that Humboldt made it up. But fish with electricity is more common than you might think and electric eels are a type of fish. Underwater, where light is scarce, electrical signals offer ways to communicate, navigate, and find—plus, in rare cases, stun—prey. Nearly 350 species of fish have specialized anatomical structures that generate and detect electrical signals. These fish are divided into two groups, depending on how much electricity they produce. Scientists call the first group the weakly electric fish. Structures near their tails called electric organs produce up to a volt of electricity, about two-thirds as much as a AA battery. How does this work? The fish's brain sends a signal through its nervous system to the electric organ, which is filled with stacks of hundreds or thousands of disc-shaped cells called electrolytes. Normally, electrolytes pump out sodium and potassium ions to maintain a positive charge outside and negative charge inside. But when the nerve signal arrives at the electrocyte, it prompts the ion gates to open. Positively charged ions flow back in. Now, one face of the electrocyte is negatively charged outside and positively charged inside. But the far side has the opposite charge pattern. These alternating charges can drive a current, turning the electrolyte into a biological battery. The key to these fish's powers is that nerve signals are coordinated to arrive at each cell at exactly the same time. That makes the stacks of electrolytes act like thousands of batteries in series. The tiny charges from each one add up to an electrical field that can travel several meters. Cells called electroreceptors buried in the skin allow the fish to constantly sense this field and the changes to it caused by the surroundings or other fish. The Peter’s elephant nose fish, for example, has an elongated chin called a schnauzenorgan that's riddled in electroreceptors. That allows it to intercept signals from other fish, judge distances, detect the shape and size of nearby objects, and even determine whether a buried insect is dead or alive. But the elephant nose and other weakly electric fish don't produce enough electricity to attack their prey. That ability belongs to the strongly electric fish, of which there are only a handful of species. The most powerful strongly electric fish is the electric knife fish, more commonly known as the electric eel. Three electric organs span almost its entire two-meter body. Like the weakly electric fish, the electric eel uses its signals to navigate and communicate, but it reserves its strongest electric discharges for hunting using a two-phased attack that susses out and then incapacitates its prey. First, it emits two or three strong pulses, as much as 600 volts. These stimulate the prey's muscles, sending it into spasms and generating waves that reveal its hiding place. Then, a volley of fast, high-voltage discharges causes even more intense muscle contractions. The electric eel can also curl up so that the electric fields generated at each end of the electric organ overlap. The electrical storm eventually exhausts and immobilizes the prey, and the electric eel can swallow its meal alive. The other two strongly electric fish are the electric catfish, which can unleash 350 volts with an electric organ that occupies most of its torso, and the electric ray, with kidney-shaped electric organs on either side of its head that produce as much as 220 volts. There is one mystery in the world of electric fish: why don't they electrocute themselves? It may be that the size of strongly electric fish allows them to withstand their own shocks, or that the current passes out of their bodies too quickly. Some scientists think that special proteins may shield the electric organs, but the truth is, this is one mystery science still hasn't illuminated.

Now Let's What If You Fell In Pool Of Eels

They're found in rivers in the Amazon rainforest. And instead of biting or stinging their prey, these creatures release up to 600 volts of electricity. This is the electric eel. What would happen if you encountered one? How about a pool full of them? If you're hoping to jump into a pool full of electric eels, you might not have a chance to get into the water. That's because if the eels see you standing outside the pool, they might jump out and shock you. That's right. When electric eels see a threat, they're able to jump up and zap you. This packs an even greater punch than they would have while in the water. So you'll have to be careful before you jump into our pool. But what happens if you were able to dive right in? It's safe to say that something like this would be incredibly dangerous. Although electric eels don't hunt humans and aren't something we should be afraid of in our daily lives, they will definitely shock you if they think you're a threat or something they could eat. For now, let's go easy on you, and give you a single electric eel in an average size swimming pool. As you soon as you enter the water, the fish will let out an electric discharge. It does this by using the three electric organs within its body. These organs contain electrolytes and the eel uses them to navigate and communicate as well as shock it's prey. The first electric shock is used to locate you. This could affect you in a few ways. If it were a smaller electric eel, its shock would definitely sting and could give you some muscle spasms. The eel would hope that you would make some splashes which would help it to find you. Once that happens, and the eel spots you, it will release a second electric shock. If the shock were to come from a full-sized adult, it would be equal to 600 volts of electricity. Now this shock itself might not kill you, but it would lead to some serious consequences. At first, you'll experience some loss of muscle control. That's because our muscles are stimulated by electricity. If you got too much of it, you'd lose some major functions in your body. If that isn't bad enough, you'd also have some incredibly painful muscle contractions. All this would cause you to pass out. And oh, remember that we're in a pool? If you've passed out, you'll drown, and then it would take just 60 seconds for you to die. But if you did somehow manage to get out before then, you could possibly survive. Though with shocks like this, you'd still experience the effects months, if not years, later. They could include burns, scars, and even more muscle spasms. So that was just one electric eel, and it was pretty deadly. But what if we put 100 electric eels in a pool? Well, it would mean instant death as soon as you jumped in. That's because electric eels don't play well with each other. If you were to put just two together in a small aquarium, they would constantly be slapping one another and releasing electric shocks. So if we decided to put 100 electric eels in an average-sized swimming pool, the water would be filled with a constant barrage of fish slaps and thousands of volts of electricity. Yeah, good luck jumping into this one! So jumping into a pool full of electric eels is practically an instant death sentence.