Some
scientists let their curiosity make them do truly weird experiments. Meet Ken Catania.
He studies strange-looking creatures, such as the star-nosed mole and its
unusual way to smell underwater. More recently, Catania has been focusing on
electric eels, and their ‘shocking’ abilities.
He discovered
that eels can control how much electricity they put out. They use low voltage
pulses to sense for prey, and they can turn up the power to make prey (think of
fish) twitch or go numb. That was fascinating, but then Catania came across an 1800s illustration and an odd South American story from famous explorer
Alexander von Humboldt. Humboldt wrote of eels attacking a group of horses that
had stepped into a pool where the eels lived.
“The
aggressive behavior of the eels, taking the offensive against the horses, seems
the most fantastic and questionable part of the story,” he said.
Just when scientists
thought they knew all there was to know about electric eels, here comes an old
tale that makes them wonder. Can eels really jump out of the water? Catania had
to solve the mystery and so he did using props shaped like alligator heads and
human arms, and electric connections to see with his own eyes whether eels in
his lab could jump as Humboldt’s allegedly did.
The Shocking Secret of the Electric Eel book also includes four more secrets: how parrot
fish don’t let the sea bugs bite, the jumping spider’s amazing ‘hairy’ hearing,
the mystery of European eels and their heads (these are much smaller that the
electric eel and won’t shock you), and the secret of the underwater night
hummers.
May I entice you with more animal secrets? I invite you to
visit my website to
explore the other titles of this series.
Coming up
soon: Teacher’s Guides for Animal Secrets books!
Follow me on Twitter @RodriguezAMaria
Facebook at Ana Maria Rodriguez Writer
My website: Ana Maria Rodriguez
Contact me! I am available for school visits,
conferences and science talks at your event!
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