How an Electric Eel Works: teacher key

Electric Eels, grade 10 edition, written for 10th grade. How does an electric eel make electricity, and how big can its shock get? This book covers its cells, measured shocks, its three species, where it lives, how it breathes and how it uses its shock on food.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What do the electrocytes in a large electric eel add up to when stacked in series?
   • About 6 volts
   • Over 600 volts (answer)
   • Exactly 1 volt
2. About how much does one firing electrocyte make?
   • 860 volts
   • 1 amp
   • 150 millivolts (answer)
3. What did the curare experiment show?
   • Treated fish did not twitch when the eel sent out pulses (answer)
   • Eels cannot breathe air
   • Eels eat curare
4. What did the eels follow on the spinning disk?
   • A bright light
   • A loud sound
   • A small metal conductor (answer)
5. In the 2019 study, what happened as E. varii eels got bigger?
   • Their shocks got stronger (answer)
   • Their shocks got weaker
   • Their shocks stopped
6. About how long ago did the lowland species split from the other two?
   • 71 years ago
   • 7.1 million years ago (answer)
   • 710 million years ago

Words

• electrocytes: power cells
• ions: charged particles
• curare: nerve-blocking drug
• conductor: metal object
• lateral: on the side