This Alligator Will Die From 860 Volts

in the wild unless you're sitting at the top of the food chain everything is trying to eat you in order to survive you either gotta get fast get hiding or get creative one creature that's developed a shocking but effective defense mechanism is none other than the electric eel able to spontaneously generate high voltage pulses of electricity so what do you think happens when a vicious predator like the cayman the amazon's equivalent of a crocodile tries to take a bite out of an electric eel will it get the shock of its life or is it lights out for the cranky cayman if you ever put a 9-volt battery on your tongue you'll know that electricity tastes terrible there's also that unpleasant painful jolt in your mouth kind of like licking an electric fence now imagine ramping that battery up from 9 volts all the way and you're starting to get an idea just how much biting an electric eel sucks so how do electric eels deliver such a powerful shock what can that much electricity do to a human being and did the cayman make it out alive you'll have to stick around to find out electrophorus electricus otherwise known as the electric eel is a curious fish despite having the word eel in its name and looking exactly like one they're not eels at all in fact they're part of the gymnodaformy's family of knife fish and are more closely related to a catfish or carp than a traditional eel up until 2019 it was believed there was only one species of electric eel that was before an expedition found and classified two more species electrophorus vary and electrophorus voltai growing up to eight feet long and weighing as much as 44 pounds you'll find electric eels throughout the northeast of south america including the amazon and orinoco river basins they love lurking through slow-moving