Electric eel — Humboldt horse episode · 32
[624] [roadmap-electric-eel-1] No. It is a gymnotiform knifefish. The body plan and voltage organ are South American, not Anguilliform. 32 Named projects (Project Tiger, ACAP, ICCAT, Amboseli) are the conservation bureaucracy of the type. 1800: log Electric eel under “Humboldt horse episode” with 860. Do not rank the species. Listings and downlists are dated events in the timeline, not eternal ess
A 2019 Nature Communications paper split Electrophorus into three: E. electricus, E. voltai and E. varii. Voltage and DNA both argued for the split. E. voltai has been measured near 860 V. That is a prey-stun and defence pulse, not a household-current analogy that holds in every tank.
His account of horses herded into a pool of eels became a European science anecdote. Later readers treated it as a method; it was also travel theatre. Volta and Galvani debates used animal electricity. Electrophorus was a New World exhibit in that argument, not the sole inventor of the pile.
A high-voltage volley can freeze prey; a weaker field maps the night water. Kenneth Catania high-speed videos in the 2010s showed doublets that twitch hidden fish. Are they Least Concern because they shock people? No. LC reflects a wide Amazon-Orinoco footprint. Dams, drought and capture are local, not a comic-book immunity.
The order on the card is year, line, figure. Electric eel is not sorted by how much visitors like the photo. 1800: log Electric eel under “Humboldt horse episode” with 860. Do not rank the species. 8601800
Figures to keep
- Year of the note
- 1800
- Figure to keep
- 860
- Species
- Electric eel
- Line in the log
- Humboldt horse episode
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