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RE: Electric Eel: Reasons why they can't shock themselves, and their bio-mimetic potentials.
What makes the electric shock severe on the prey is because the current entering into the body is much larger proportionally to that of the eel body that produced the charge
Please kindly elaborate on this since the current produced by the eel is very small, thank you.
@synick, yes u're right. I said that the severity of an electric shock depends on the time and also the amount of current flowing through a body. The current produced by an electric eel is very small. It's in fact between 100-200 milli ampere and also the time the discharging takes place is also very minute to cause any damage to themselves. So, an electric eel generating 100mA in 20ms will have little on no effect on its body. Even the only shocking effect it could have observed would have already been dissipated into the water through its skin. But the only reason why the discharge will be severe on a (small) prey inside the water is because though the current received by the prey is small, but the discharge within the (small) body of the prey will be greater by comparing the body to volume ratio. Taking for instance, a prey two times smaller in length than an eel is about eight times smaller in volume, so it will experience a greater current discharge within it as compared to the discharging eel itself since larger part of the current that could have affected the eel has already been dissipated through its skin into the water.
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