The electric eel has three abdominal pairs of organs that produce electricity: the main organ, the Hunter's organ, and the Sach's organ.
These organs make up four-fifths of its body, and are what give the electric eel the ability to generate two types of electric organ discharges: low voltage and high voltage. These organs are made of electrocytes, lined up so a current of ions can flow through them and stacked so each one adds to a potential difference. When the eel locates its prey, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system to the electrocytes.
This opens the ion channels, allowing sodium to flow through, reversing the polarity momentarily. By causing a sudden difference in electric potential, it generates an electric current in a manner similar to a battery, in which stacked plates each produce an electrical potential difference. In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000 stacked electroplaques are capable of producing a shock at up to 500 volts and 1 ampere of current (500 watts).
It would be extremely unlikely for such a shock to be deadly for an adult human, due to the very short duration of an eel's discharge (<2 ms). Electrocution death is due to current flow; the level of current would be fatal in humans depending on the path the current takes through the human body, and the duration of current flow. Heart fibrillation (which is reversible via a heart defibrillator) can take place from electrical currents ranging from 70 to 700 mA and higher, provided the current flows for more than about 30 ms.
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