The Stunning Case of Leaping Electric Eels
New experiments vindicate a naturalist’s 200-year-old account of fishing for eels—with horses.
It was March of 1800, and Alexander von Humboldt wanted electric eels.
While traveling in South America, the German naturalist and explorer became fascinated by these two-meter-long fish, and asked local fishermen to help him collect some. Their strategy was unorthodox, to say the least. They drove some 30 horses and mules into a pool of eels, which allegedly reared out of the water, pressed themselves against the stampeding legs, and shocked the shit out of them. Once the chaos had died down (and two horses had died), the fisherman waded in and safely grabbed five of the exhausted
