Electric-eel Xmas lights? What a bright idea!

Electric-eel Xmas lights? What a bright idea! — An aquarium in Japan has come up with a novel — not to mention eco-friendly — way to power the lights on their Christmas tree this year: the ­electric eel.

The resident eel is housed in a special tank, which contains two aluminium panels.

These act as electrodes, ­harnessing the 800 watts of electricity the eel generates every time it moves and directing it down a wire and straight into the lights on the 6ft  6in tree.

The resident eel in a Japanese aquarium is housed in a special tank, which contains two aluminium panels that will help illuminate the Christmas lights

Kazuhiko Minawa, who works at the Enoshima Aquarium in Tokyo and invented the madcap device, says: 'If we could gather all the electric eels from around the world, we could light up an unimaginably large Christmas tree!'

Now that really would be eel-uminating. ( dailymail.co.uk )