Question: How come when eels shock people in the water they don't electrocute other fish and themselves?

Sean Clement answered on 24 Jun 2011:

Good one… I have to say that I’m genuinely clueless about how they do it. I know that the electricty generated by Electric Eels is ‘bioelectricity’ and in fact generated by a highly specialised set of muscles and nerve cells in an organ called, unimaginatively, the electric organ. This is used not just for generated high voltage electric shock but to also hunt and as a form of navigation. Being able to navigate by electrical signals is something that many fish have in one form or another (Sharks are particularly good at this) but it’s most prevalent in Fishes like Electric Eels or Catfish or any fish that lives in murky waters like those of the Amazon river. Being unable to see more than a few inches ahead of you means that you have to find other ways of finding your way around and, more importantly, finding your food.

Anyway! This is just me trying to maneuver around not being able to answer the questions properly so I’ll guess instead. I reckon that, over time, as Electric Eels developed the ability to generate these huge electric shocks, the ability to withstand them evolved over time also, possibly through some property of their skin that makes it a very weak conductor, or probably just through being proper ‘ard fish and able to withstand electric shocks…