Re: Bioelectronics (Living Batteries)

[Russell Groves <rgroves@csd.net>]

John Bryan wrote:
> 
> Hello EV people,
>         I was recently studying the electronic mechanisms used by creatures
> that use electricity as a defensive strategy, such as some eels and rays.
> I was fascinated to learn that the ones who live in a salt water environment,
> take advantage of the highly conductive medium and wire their batteries in
> parallel for greater current. The ones who live in fresh water need greater
> voltage to overcome the much higher resistence, so wire their batteries in
> series! The batteries in the Electric ray are composed of a large number of
> hexagonal columns holding a pile of plates and filled with a jelled
> electrolyte. The number of plates per column may be 140 to a thousand or
> more. In a large ray it could be up to half a million plates. An average
> Torpedo ray puts out 50 amps at 50-60 volts, but a large one may put out
> 200 volts. 

This is the coolest thing I've ever read.  Do you know how the ray
insulates its power storage?  Or how it triggers a discharge when
harrassed?

Russell Groves