ELECTRICITY IN FISH.

Shannon News, 20 May 1924, Page 4

ELECTRICITY IN FISH.

SOME UGLY CUSTOMERS. POWERFUL CURRENTS USED. Second only to the.battling mystery of what' electricity is, which still puzzles the leading scientists of the world, are the marvellous and astonishing living batteries o.f certain lishes which have the magical power of producing their own electricity at will j and in quantities large enough to I make them dangerous customers to 1 meet.

[ These animated “induction coils in ) the shape o,C fishes inhabit various pal't Cf the seven seas, and although scientists have studied lllChl assiduously for years, their secrets are still hidden in the microscopic cells of their electrical organs.

Foremost among these piscatorial dynamos, which M. \an Demark writes about in “Practical Electrics,” is the electric cel o.t the brackish waters of South America. This eel is nat unlike the common river eel familiar to everyone. It grows to the astonishing" length of six or seven led, but the average specimens of this species are about four feet long. This eel is nothing more than a fish in an extended and elongated form, and possesses.a powerful electric battery near the tail, with which it stuns its prey and drives away its natural enemies. Few denizens of the deep, large or small, would relish a second encounter with an electric eel. Whoa attacked it merely claps its “live-wire” caudal (tail) appendage against its enemy and presses the button. The victim immediately gets a powerful shock o.f electricity which is strong enough to knock a man down.

I jive Horses as liait. Scientists who have dissected these eels to discover “the reason,” have been defied. They found that the electrical organs consist of two pairs of longitudinal organs located between the skin and the muscles of the caudal region, composed of 240 cells and supplied by more than 200 nerves. The eel can discharge current enough to kill an animal of considerable size, and can easily knock down a mail or horse. Alter a few consecutive shocks the battery is exhausted and the eel has to retire to a nearby mudbank to rest, so that he can regenerate a new supply. In an hour or two he is ready for the next victim. ■ The .eel is very good to eat, but no one cares to take them, off the hooks, so the common and horrible way to catch them is to drive horses into the bayous, where they are known to bo plentiful. The eels attack the horses and quickly exhaust their batteries. When! they are powerless to do any further electrocution they are speared by the natives. Not infrequently horses are lost in this manner of fishing. The Torpedo Kay. The eel is not the only denizen of .the deep to be safeguarded by powerful electric batteries. There is the torpedo ray, o.r skate, which lo&ics like a three-cornered kite with a long" tail, equally dangerous tso handle without rubber gloves. There are also several quite unrelated lishes which possess the extraordinary properly of communicating" an electric shock to animals with which they come into contact.

In all cases the electric organs nrmodification of muscular tissues, locking like a, mass of closely packed prisms, each divided into a series oi compartments filled with a gelatinous substance.

The electric ray has its batteries near the head. They are supplied with energy from large nerves procced 'ig from the brain. The ray is an ugly ? customer, and can give as much trouble as the electric eel. A man receiving a shock from a large ray will remember it l'or a long time, U', indeed, lie is not killed outright.. liven tlie little rays can give’quite a shock when molested. The electric rav is a member o.f the skate family

and most skates can produce more or less electricity, but the ray is the only one of this species wliicli is dangerous to handle. Then, there is the electric cat-lish from the Nile, which carries about a powerful storage battery concealed under its skin next to the muscles.

This battery is a layer or blanket of electric cells covering most ot' the body. The oharge can be delivered at will, arid is quite powerful, but, as the lisli. never attains large proportion**, its slio.clc is not dangerous to anything except small animals' 1 Fish From the Depths.

While all the fish mentioned are capable of producing electricity for hunting and defensive purposes, not one (ft* them utilises the current fo: electric lighting. And yet, strange as it may seem, there are plenty of other fishes which do, use electricity produced by themselves for this very purpose.

Not until the last eight or ten years has any attempt been made to investigate the life of the deeper parts of the ocean. But the trawls and drag-nets suspended a, mile under the water, where it is necessrily total darkn„ess all the .time, reveal a multitude of small fishes each equipped with tin electric light. Without this light they would, o.f course, be unable to see at all at this great depth, where the sunlight can never penetrate. The nets bring up a host of these small fishes, and in nearly every case they are equipped with the brightest eyes and little inu._ vidual lanterns to light their way along the dark pathways of the deep. No man knows just how the electricity for this light is produced.