Scientist shocks himself with an electric eel so you don't have to
![](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IQ7SkRrQ3vhzGNVN50Nr4nad4nk=/0x176:276x360/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/56679017/2017_09_14_10_44_05.0.gif)
Before he was shocked by a leaping electric eel, Kenneth Catania wasn’t sure what it would be like. In fact, no one was really sure. So, in the name of finding out exactly how much of a jolt the creatures could deliver, Catania, a professor at Vanderbilt University, volunteered his own arm. The eel jumped out of the water and into the air to deliver its shock. It looked like a nuzzle, but it packed the wallop of an electric fence.
Catania’s report appears today in the journal Current Biology. While underwater jolts from eels are well-known, above-water shocks aren’t. In fact, until now, the behavior had been reported only once before — over 200 years ago by German...