Electric Eels

0:00Oh hey there my sleepy friend. Miss Meow Meow and I have been working really hard on getting the new cozy critters online star ready. We can't wait to share more with you in just a few weeks. In the meantime, did you know Patreon members get early access to cozy critters merch before anyone else? That means you don't have to worry about new shirts and goodies being sold out. If you'd like to become a Patreon member, visit cozy critterspodcast.com like our newest members, Ember and Flint from Oregon.

1:00Oh, what's this Miss Meow Meow? We have incoming messages. Let's see who it could be. Doggie Pickles came to the story about Watcher's Eel. My name is Matteo. Hi, I'm Sloan and I would like to request an electric eels because I think they're really cool because they can electric shop keep pill and I am six and a half years old. Bye. All right, electric eels are a wow's orific request. Thanks so much to Matteo from Maryland and Sloan from Oklahoma for suggesting this episode's cozy critter. Now on with the show.

2:10Hey, howdy and hippopotamus. Hi, fives, my sleepy friend. It's your old pal, Doggie Pickles. And I'm here with my sidekick. The sleepy is cat in all the land. Miss Meow Meow. We're taking our magical hot air balloon to a place full of glowing tanks, gentle bubbling water and soft night time echoes. We're heading to the shed aquarium right in the heart of Chicago to meet electric eels. I'd love to hear a joke, Miss Meow Meow. Hmm, what do

3:11electric eels eat for dessert? Chocolate. Now that's a sweet joke, Miss Meow Meow. Let's get our magical traveling balloon ready. I need your help blowing it up. So take in a deep breath through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Great job. Just one more time, my sleepy friend. Take in a deep breath through your nose and then exhale through your mouth. You did it. Now our magic balloon is all blown up. Tonight our balloon glows like a lantern. Deep

4:15aquarium blue with tiny silver sparkles that look like rising bubbles. My sleepy friend, are you ready to meet an electric eel? Let's get in the magical hot air balloon basket. It here, we go. First, we rise above your bedroom, then higher and even higher until your city becomes a quiet pattern of twinkling lights. A seagull drifts past our balloon, wings glowing in the city lights before it glides quietly toward the aquarium. Oh look, we're here. Can you guess where we are?

5:23Let's use our noses and see what we can smell. Take in a deep breath through your nose and exhale through your mouth. It smells like cool water and clean stone and that gentle leafy set aquariums always have the kind of smell that feels calm and quiet and full of sleepy secrets. We're floating through the quiet halls of the shed aquarium where glowing tanks shimmer softly and the whole building seems to whisper its own bedtime story. We float gently through a doorway

6:34into the cool, peaceful world of the Amazon rising exhibit and right away the air feels different. Warm and rain forest soft. Oh wow, liquid mismiao miao just spotted in a shadowy tank. A smooth creature glides through the dim water like a ribbon made of moonlight and shadows. It's an electric eel. Even in the dark water you can see it's shape as long as a grown-ups arm to arm stretch strong and sleek. Its eyes are tiny because in the wild electric

7:41eels live in muddy murky rivers where seeing doesn't help much anyway. Instead they use something even more amazing. You hear that sound. It's coming from a little speaker beside the tank. That's not the eel making noise. That's a device translating their electricity into sound. Those boops are tiny pulses. Small zaps the eel sends into the water like little electric whispers. Electric eels have a special electric organ inside

8:46their bodies. It's like a natural battery. The front part starts it and the whole rest of their body builds it up. As the eel grows the battery gets bigger and stronger and more powerful. But most of the time they aren't zapping things. No, they're mapping the world. Those tiny pulses bounce off plants, rocks, other fish, and even other eels. Then the eel reads the echoes with little pits around its head like electric fingerprints sensing the water. This is called electro-location and it's how they see in the dark.

9:57You're right, Miss Miao Miao. It is similar to dolphins except dolphins use echolocation which is using sound to navigate and hunt. But electro-location which is what electric eels use is quieter and softer and is like feeling the world instead of hearing it. Some electric eels use their high power electricity to stun fish for dinner or to defend themselves. Even little eels newly hatched can make small zaps right away enough to catch tiny fish

11:02or protect themselves. Did you know electric eels breathe air? Their gills are tiny and the wild waters they live in don't have much oxygen. So they swim to the surface, take a big gulp of air and use that breath to explore the muddy world below. Even though they seem mysterious, electric eels aren't scary to each other, they have a layer of insulation under their skin, a nice cushiony layer that keeps them from zapping themselves or their tank mates. Watching them glide through the water,

12:08sending tiny sparks to understand the world makes me think electric eels don't need bright eyes or loud sounds to understand their world. They feel tiny changes in the water and listen to the softest signals. Sometimes my sleepy friend, the quiet way you notice things like your emotions are just as real and important as the bigger more obvious things because each thing you feel is your mind and body telling you something special about yourself and the more we listen to those feelings, the more we learn about who we are,

13:17how bowserific is that. It looks like our electric eels friends are slowing down for the night. I'm pretty tired too, and Miss Meow Meow is all curled up in the basket like a tiny shadow her tail loops neatly around her paws. How about you my sleepy friend? Are you ready to head home in dream of our new friends electric eels? Well then let's head home here we go. First we rise above the quiet aquarium halls then higher and even higher until Chicago

14:22spreads below us again glowing like sleepy fireflies along the lane and our seagull friend drifts past our balloon once more its wings brushed with moonlight before it disappears into the dark. While we head home I thought of a lullaby I want to share with you it goes like this. Tiny sparks in shadowed streams little maps of electric dreams, currents hum in waters deep guiding eels through quiet sleep warm bright pulses soft as night

15:25globe beneath the waves tonight rest now yield till warnings new and sleep to your friend as we do too. Oh look you're back home Miss Meow Meow and I had such a wonderful time with you we hope to see you soon when we visit our next animal friend baby stingrays. Until next time my sleepy friend to Loo and cozy critter dreams too.

16:25We want to give a special thank you to Jim Watson a senior aquarist at the shed aquarium for teaching us all about electric eels and a big high five to Johnny Ford the PR director for setting up our visit to plan a trip of your own to the shed aquarium in Chicago visit shed aquarium dot com. Miss Meow Meow and I want to give an extra special thank you to our Patreon supporters including those in the wows horrific tear. Noel from Nebraska Zinia from Washington DC Abram and Leah from Virginia Joey from Washington Township New Jersey Gloria Claudia and Veronica

17:29from Long Valley New Jersey Kaya in Santa Fe New Mexico Kennedy from Edmunds Washington Caroline and Nora from North Carolina Otis and Lily from Montana Charlotte from Green Bay Wisconsin Caroline from Madison Wisconsin and Esme and Rory from Massachusetts cozy critters is produced by me Doug Frazier and distributed by PRX make sure to subscribe to cozy critters on Apple podcasts Spotify the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast from PRX