Surprised by an Electric Eel! – Video

Shocked by an Electric Eel!

In this video, the host is facing one of his biggest challenges on the “Brave Wilderness” channel – being shocked by an electric eel. With the eel capable of producing an electric shock of up to 860 volts, the host is understandably nervous about the experiment. After bracing himself, the host sticks his hand in the tank to experience the shock of an electric eel and is left shocked by the intensity of the experience. But the shocks don’t stop there. With the help of a Van der Graaf generator and a Tens unit, the host continues to explore the science behind electric shocks and current, learning that the eel’s shock is similar to a chain reaction and that voltage and current play significant roles in the intensity of the shock. This video delves into the fascinating world of electric eels and the science behind their shocking abilities in a thrilling and educational way.

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– What I have here in front of me is a three and a half foot electric eel capable of producing an electric shock up to 860 volts, enough to take down a horse, let alone me. To put that in perspective, that’s about eight times the voltage that’s in your household outlet.

And I never stuck my finger in the outlet as a kid, I listened to my mom, but right now I’m about to stick my hand in this tank to experience the shock of an electric eel. If you can’t tell, I am definitely nervous. This is easily the craziest thing I’ve ever done

On the “Brave Wilderness” channel. (exhales deeply) Oh my gosh, you cannot believe how nervous I am right now. (groans) All right, here we go. It’s gonna go for shock, here we go. One, two, three. Now, before you witness the results of my first electrocution, it’s important to note that this electric eel is an educational ambassador for its species and was not harmed by shocking. Please do not attempt to recreate what you’re about to see. This experiment was filmed under the supervision of professionals. Oh. Whew, whew, whew. Wow. Holy smokes. Ooh, yeah, that you don’t expect. You definitely do not expect that from a fish. Wow. Holy mackerel. You see an animal like this and yeah, it looks strange, but you never in your life expect a fish to be able to shock you like that. Whoa.

As soon as I made contact with the eel, it was like instant. Oh my gosh. (exhales deeply) The good news is my first shock with the electric keel is over. The bad news is that’s not my last shock of the day. This is just the beginning. Underneath that tarp, we have an absolutely monstrous electric eel, one that will dwarf the size of this one.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, size does matter when it comes to shocks and electric eels. But before we get to the ultimate shock, we need to understand a little bit more about what’s going on inside the body of this animal that allows it to produce this tremendous amount of energy.

In order to do that, I’ve invited my good friend, Diana, “Physics Girl” here today to put me through a few more shock experiments so we can learn a little bit more about what’s going on in the electric eel. All right, let’s go meet up with Diana. Oh my Gosh. Oh boy, Diana. I’m usually so excited to see you, why am I nervous? – I mean, usually I haven’t brought one of these to our reunions. – Oh, my Gosh, what is this, speaking of? – Well, you wanted me to teach you about how shocking works and so that’s what we’re gonna do with this thing here.

So what I’m gonna do here is I’m gonna just gonna turn this on, you’re going to then touch it quickly. But as I turn it on, as it gets warmed up, you’re gonna feel like a little tingling. – All right, hold up. – Yeah. – I have to touch this?

– You’re gonna have to touch it, yeah. Okay, ready? – Okay, go for it. Wait, wait, why do you look nervous? – (chuckles) ‘Cause I hate this thing. – (laughs nervously) Okay. – [Diana] I’ve experienced it. – All right. – Yeah. Fingers straight out to that big metal sphere. Mm-hmm. – Try your arm. – Try my arm? – Yeah. – [Diana] Ooh, that’s a big one. – Whoa, you see my hair standing up? I think I can smell my hair burning actually. Whoa. – How does that feel? – (groans) That’s about as much as I can take. Now you got my attention. How does this relate to electric eels? – So what we’re doing with this thing, this is called a Van Der Graaf generator. And it’s the perfect thing for understanding charge, because what happens here is a bunch of charges build up on this sphere.

And then as soon as you bring your hand near it, they discharge, they actually traveled through the air to your finger. – So that’s like the little lightning bolt that I’m seeing. – Yeah. – Got it. So, okay, I think I understand now, so basically this Van der Graaf globe represents

An electric site in the eels. – Yeah, yeah, exactly. In the eel, they build up charge and then it discharges all at once just like the spark from the Van Der Graaf generator. – Got it, so it’s like a chain reaction. So very much like a battery. And here’s a cool fact.

The first battery is actually invented by a gentleman named Volta and he actually designed his first battery off of the inner workings of the electric eel. So without this animal, there would be no Duracell and there certainly would not be a Tesla, which is pretty cool.

Okay, so the eel, we couldn’t measure the first shock, but we know they can be up to like 860 volts. – Mm-hmm. – How many volts is this? – This is about 350,000. – Ah, what? – 350, 000 volts. – How am I standing here? Are you trying to kill me? – That’s the difference between voltage and current. So you need to know about both. So I’ve got one more experiment to learn about current. – Okay, so there’s more shocks to come. – There’s a lot more. Next experiment I’ve got, so this is a Tens unit.

A lot of people are probably more familiar with this. So this is gonna give you some little pulses of electricity through your arm. – All right. – It is going through your skin and some of the tissues just below your skin. And now I’m gonna turn it on

And then I’m gonna go ahead and just bump it up little by little. – Okay. – You feel anything? – Nothing. Oh, oh, yeah, somethings happening. – Yeah, you felt that? – Yeah, a little something. – [Diana] What’s it feel like? – It feels tingly. Yeah, I think I can take- – How low? – Oh, oh. I didn’t do that. – Can we go up a little higher? We’re at number two, by the way- – How high does it go out? – Out of eight. How are you feeling? – I think I can go to a four, let’s try four. – Okay, we’re gonna go up to three. – I’m not doing that, I swear. – I feel a little bad, but not that bad. We probably only got up to about 25 volts there. – Really? – So it’s really, really low in comparison. – Oh, I would have guessed it was like a million volts. – Nope, nope.

But the thing is that there’s more energy flowing, more charge is flowing through here. Should we go higher than a four? How do you feel about that? – Let it rip. – Okay. Ready? – Yep. – Okay, here we go up to as high as I can. – (groans loudly) Okay. I tap out, tap out, okay. – That was a six. – That was good. – That was a six? – That was a six. But yeah, the biggest difference is that there’s more current flowing and that’s, what’s gonna get you because you’ve got more energy. Plus it’s not as fast.

Like the eel, the Van der Graaf generator, like bam, you’re done. This is continual. – Okay. – So yeah. – Okay. – Current’s what’s going to do you in. – I still need this hand for another eel shock. So we needed to find a way for everyone at home

To see the shock from the eel. Because like, obviously right here, you could see that I was feeling the current. You could see the lightning bolt from the Van der Graaf, but you can’t really see anything happening with the eel shock. How can we maybe visualize it?

– Yeah, so we’ve got one more thing set up to be able to see there’s actually electricity running through the water. – As it turns out, the electric eel isn’t actually an eel at all. It is a species of night fish that are more closely related to carpet and catfish.

But they are definitely electric. Their tail contains three electric organs that are each packed with thousands of cells called electrocytes. These cells act like a series of batteries one stacked on top of another. And by moving electrons across their surface, they can produce shocks on demand.

And I mean big shocks and lots of them. So for this next experiment, we’re going to harness all of that energy and turn it into visual fireworks that you can see. – Whoa, what is this? – Come on in here. Okay, so this is a Tesla coil. – Okay. – Yeah.

So you remember the spark from the Van der Graaf generator? – I sure do. – Much bigger on this one. And we are not gonna touch this one because the sparks are gonna be like six inches. This one’s dangerous. – Really? – Yeah, yeah. I didn’t bring this one.

This was made actually, rigged up by my friends from ArcAttack, and this whole system was made by them. There’s some probes in the water in the tank. We will send the electric shock from the eel through the water, and then it’s directly connected to the Tesla coil.

So we’ll be able to see through the spark every single time the eel is shocking the water or you. – (laughs) Or me. – Or we’ll see it or hear it. It’s going to be really cool. – Well, this is perfect. Thank you for building this.

Thank you to ArcAttack for putting this together. I think all that’s left to do now is to reveal the eel and fire this up. It’s time for the grand finale, folks. You ready? – I’m ready. – Here we go. – (chuckles) Oh, so nervous. Are you ready Diana? – I’m ready. On three, one, two, three. Oh, it’s the whole tank. – [Diana] (chuckles) Oh my Gosh. – That eel is over one meter in length, over a foot and a half longer than the eel this morning. And like I told you,

Size does matter when it comes to electric eels and their shock. Basically, the bigger the battery, the bigger the charge. Should we turn on the Tesla coil? – Yeah, yeah, let’s hear it. – What? – [Diana] That is all the eel. – That makes it so much worse. – Every single shot, that’s all the eel. Oh my God. – I was so nervous earlier, this is making it way, way worse, okay. – [Diana] This is so cool, but I did not envy you.

– There you go. You may be wondering why this electric eel is producing electricity unprovoked. Well, there’s a reason they have three electric organs. The Sach’s organ pulses with a lower voltage shock, which is used like radar for electro communication and navigation throughout its environment.

This is important since they live in the murky waters of South America and have extremely poor eyesight. Then there’s the main and Hunter’s organs. These are the ones that produce those infamous high voltage shocks which are used to stun their prey so they can be swallowed alive. All right, here we go. Okay. All right. On three, here we go. I’m Mark Vins, and this is getting shocked by a really big electric eel. One, two, three. Nope. Got nervous, sorry. – This really sets the scene for you, Mark. – Sure does. Thanks Diana. I love science. All right. That’s the eel doing all this? – That’s all the eel. – Okay, let’s see if I can feel it. Oh. – You felt that? – Yeah. – That’s cool. – I can tell you this, the eel this morning was not doing this. – Yeah, yeah. – This eel is feisty. This shock is gonna be bad. All right, here we go. The shock’s gonna be (mumbles) All right. Here comes the big shock. I’m Mark Vins, And this is getting shocked by a really big electric eel. Here goes nothing. One, two, oh, I could feel in the water, three. (groans in pain) Oh, oh, oh. Oh, my… – [Crew Member] You okay, Mark? – Yeah. Hold on, give me a second. That really felt bad. – Ooh. Yeah. That was so much worse. That was a lot worse than this morning. Holy smokes. Did you see the shock? I heard it. – [Diana] Yeah. – Oh man, like I… Sorry, I’m trying to compose myself. Let me try to describe to you guys what I just went through.

Obviously I got shocked really bad. Like holy cow, you could hear the Tesla coil. I think it might’ve exploded, I don’t know. Before I could feel it, my legs were locked, my abdomen locked up. – [Diana] Are you okay? – Yeah, I’m fine. I just, sorry, I’m trying to tell everybody

What it was like. – Yeah. – Holy cow. Did we break the Tesla coil? – I’m not sure. (laughs) – I think it exploded. – The sound is like a horror movie. Like it was like a (mimics buzzing) – I could still feel it- – Yeah.

– like up and down. – Does it burn? Like, what is it? – It’s just like, I think it’s just my nerves are just like freaking out. – Fully fired on that side of your body? – Yeah. It’s definitely up here. – Only on the one side? – Yeah, like this arm’s fine.

This arm- – Crazy. – And then up through here. – Oh my God. – [Crew Member] Dude, you ear’s red. – Is it? – Yeah. – [Diana] It’s bright red. – [Crew Member] Totally, look at that. – Yeah. – It’s bright red. – Is it? – Yeah. – It feels hot.

That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done. – Yeah. – Lived to tell about it. – [Diana] (laughing) Oh my God. – Shocked by the electric eel. Diana, thank you so much. – Oh my God. – If you haven’t checked out “Physics Girl” on YouTube, Diana does some pretty darn cool experiments.

I highly recommend you subscribe to her channel. Big thanks to ArcAttack, I hope I didn’t break your Tesla coil. And thank you for watching this video. This is absolutely the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but hopefully you learned a lot today about electric eels and how crazy of an animal they truly are.

I’m Mark Vins, Be brave, stay wild. We’ll see you on the next experiment? – [Diana] Oh, God. – (laughs) Let’s go.