By Evan Ackerman
Since nobody has told me to stop doing these totally random (and admittedly questionable) Fishtank Fridays (yet), here’s another one for the holidays… This is an electric eel that lives at the Aqua Toto Gifu aquarium in Kakamigahara, Japan. His tank has been rigged up with copper wiring and connected to a Christmas tree, and every time the eel touches the wiring, the tree lights up. For some reason, the tree is supposed to be “a popular attraction for dating couples,” but I’m not really sure why. There’s no info on exactly what the output of this particular eel is, but in general, they can fire out around 500 watts, which is a heck of a lot of little lightbulbs. If you’re interested in electric eels and have nothing better to do for the next 11 minutes 58 seconds, check out this 1954 educational film, featuring a don’t try this at home moment where a guy in a lab coat uses a live eel to light up some lighbulbs, and then electrocutes five of his friends.
VIA [ Mainichi ]
I am so digging Fishtank Friday! It’s a 100 gallon tank of random awesome!
I ain’t ever going to ask you to stop doing something cool, Evan! If anything, I’ll eventually ask you to do more of this stuff.
I should note that the term “electrocute”, being a portmanteau of the words “electron” and “execute”, necessarily entails that the victim dies. Otherwise, it’s just a nasty shock.