Wild Facts

Photograph by George Grall

Welcome to Wild Facts!  If this is your first time stumbling upon our crazy little place to learn all about animal facts than please feel free to snoop around.  As well you can leave a comment or send me an e-mail if you have any questions or would like some additional information about an animal.  If you happen to be one of the regular readers than welcome back and thanks for all of your support so far.  All of you reading this are in for a shocking post today.  No I mean it will literally be electrifying since we are going to look at the always interesting Electric Eel.  What can possibly be cooler than a fish that can give you a huge electrical shock? Well, I guess it would be pretty groovy if we had sharks with laser beams but let’s not get ridiculous (Bonus Wild Fact point if you caught the movie reference in that last line).

The first thing you need to know about the Electric Eel is they are not eels.  Yes they have the same “snake-like” appearance as our eel friends but they are actually more closely related to other fish such as carp and catfish.  As we all know the Electric Eel is able to produce an electric charge which they use to stun their prey or to defend against predators. Just how powerful is their electric charge? Good question and I had a hunch that you would ask this so I came prepared.  The Electric Eel actually has about 6000 specialized cells, called electrocytes, which store power like little batteries.  These cells are able to produce a charge of about 600 volts.  For the record a standard plug-in is only about 120 volts (in North America) so the Electric Eel can generate 5 times the power of a plug-in.  If you want to know what this feels like than stick a fork in the socket and multiply that by 5.  I AM KIDDING!  Where are you going? Geez, don’t actually stick a fork in the socket! Are you nuts? Luckily human deaths from an electric eel are very rare but repeatedly getting shocked could cause heart failure.  As well, some people have drowned after being stunned by these shocking eel-like fish. I recommend you try not to get shocked by an Electric Eel but I will let you decide what you want to do.

Electric Eel Fast Fact – The Electric Eel has relatively poor eyesight but is capable of producing a low level electric charge that helps paint a picture of their surroundings.  And we thought bats that used sonar were cool.  Eat your heart out Little Brown Bat!

Thanks for stopping by Wild Facts and I look forward to seeing you around.  Have a great day!

It is almost the end of the week and so far we have talked about birds, mammals and reptiles. I figured this would be a good time to head to the sea and look at an unusual animal that is hardly ever seen by humans. So grab your diving gear and a little bit of courage because we are going to the deep, dark depths of the ocean!

The Pelican Eel is related to the true eels (the ones that we probably familiar with), however, these deep sea eels have some major differences. Most notably has to be the size of this particular eels mouth. The pelican eel has a very large, hinged mouth that is capable of consuming fish much larger than itself. You can see the size of the mouth in the picture above. Actually, this eel received the “Pelican” portion of its name since the lower job resembles the pouch-like beak of a pelican. The most bizarre thing about their mouth is the fact that the pelican eel mostly feeds on small crustaceans. As a matter of fact, they have tiny teeth which are not consistent with animals which feed primarily on fish.

The other interesting feature of this eel is located at the other end of their body. The very tip of their tail happens to be a very complex organ with several tentacles. The cool thing about this organ is the fact that it will glow pink. Scientists presume this feature is to attract fish into the area so it can chomp away at them with their extremely over-sized mouth. Again, this is an odd behaviour for an animal that is suppose to feed on small crustaceans. I am starting to think there is something “fishy” about our understanding of this eel. It just doesn’t make sense to me why they have evolved a large mouth, an attractive tail yet have small teeth and are known to feed on small creatures. Maybe they are in the process of changing for whatever reason? Whatever their story is at least it is an interesting one for all of us to read about.

That just about does it for today’s deep sea adventure. I am glad everyone made the trip and had a safe adventure. See all of you tomorrow!