The Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo is pleading with the public to video-chat their garden eels starting on Sunday, because they are forgetting that humans exist.

BBC:

"Could you show your face to our garden eels from your home?"

Yes, they're asking people to call in for a sub-aqua video chat and remind the eels that humans are friendly.

"Creatures in the aquarium don't see humans except keepers and they have started forgetting about humans," the aquarium wrote on Twitter.

"Garden eels in particular disappear into the sand and hide every time the keepers pass by."

The eels are particularly sensitive - and the aquarium is keen to reacquaint the 300 eels it homes with humans so they can carry out important health checks on them.

From May 3 to 5, you can use your iPhone or iPad (no Androids or PCs) to FaceTime these sensitive creatures. The aquarium will have five tablets pointed at the eels and ask that you (Google-translated from Japanese):

1) Open the app from the iPhone or iPad, please take a video call by entering the following one of the gmail address to the destination... Helpchin001attogmail.Com Helpchin002attogmail.Com Helpchin003attogmail.Com Helpchin004attogmail.Com Helpchin005attogmail.Com 2) After the beginning of the tablet terminal and a video call that was placed before the aquarium, to the spotted garden eel Shake or call while showing your face. Please refrain cry loudly ※. 3) terminal to be installed is five. When you can see your face for about 5 minutes, hang up the call for the next person.

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No, we still don't know if 'Nessie' is real. Read the rest

Hawaiian monk seals are endangered and closely monitored by NOAA scientists who are alarmed that the seals keep getting eels stuck really deep in their nostrils. Read the rest

If you've had a hankering for 18th-century eel succotash, you'll love the early American cooking and crafts on the James Townsend & Son channel. Aside from the recording gear, they commit completely to old school living. Read the rest

1. Chinese man is constipated. 2. Chinese man remembers an old folk remedy. 3. Remedy involves inserting a live eel up your bum. 4. Chinse man goes to hospital.

Seems like a foregone conclusion that if you insert a live eel in your rectum, health problems will ensue! The slippery monster ate through part of the guy’s intestines and went for a swim. The man went to the hospital to have it removed.

I don’t really have to say anymore because here’s a video from Chinese news with a CGI reenactment of the whole fiasco. From the music, the little green cloud, and the gas mask it appears that Chinese news takes this to be a comedic episode. Just remember this the next time you go out for a nice unagi dinner.

Via SoraNews 24.

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This intense slow-motion video, depicting an electric eel jumping from a tank to zap a faux alligator head, accompanies a new scientific paper by Vanderbilt University biologist Kenneth Catania. From Nature:

Catania first spotted the behaviour during earlier laboratory experiments with electric eels (Electrophorus electricus), when they would leap upwards to attack a metal-rimmed net as he was trying to fish them out of their tanks. He analysed it by presenting the eels with carbon rods and aluminium plates at which they struck; the video’s plastic alligator, with its flashing light-emitting diodes that are powered by the eel’s electrocution, is his dramatic demonstration of the effect...

The behaviour allows eels to directly shock their opponents, rather than having their voltage dissipated by water.

It is the first time that this has been recorded in a research paper, Catania says — although he argues that his discovery supports a widely disbelieved observation made more than 200 years ago by the Prussian explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. In a paper published in 1807, von Humboldt recounted that he had seen South American native fishermen herding horses into a pool of electric eels; the eels would discharge themselves against the horses and could be fished safely when they were exhausted.

According to Catania, there are other mysteries of the electric eels left to be solved, like how it can electrocute another creature without zapping itself in the process.

"Leaping eels electrify threats, supporting Humboldt’s account of a battle with horses" (PNAS)

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Valerie Taylor has visited a spotted moray eel for years, and the pair have become "great friends."

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A new study says that this small eel photographed by accident on a Caribbean coral reef is the first green fluorescent fish ever recorded. Read the rest

The strange menu of Bompas & Parr—séances, cooking with lava, and flaming fish murder—reminds us that food is fashion in the age of Instagram

The biology behind the green glow of Japanese freshwater eels could lead to new tests for jaundice and liver problems. RIKEN research institute scientists determined that a substance found in bile, bilirubin, is what triggers a protein in the eel, called UnaG (after unagi), to glow. Turns out, the amount of bilirubin in humans is a good indicator of liver health. Using a synthetic version of UnaG, the scientists could measure the bilirubin in a blood sample based on its glow. A similar technique may also aid in the study of tumors. "An eel's glow could illuminate liver disease" (Science News) Read the rest