Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
dmdmdtvs
  • 2 months ago
River.Monsters.S03E05
Transcript
00:00I'm Jeremy Wade, biologist and monster wrangler.
00:14I've spent the last 25 years travelling the globe, bringing in these giants.
00:20There it is! Look at that for a feast!
00:25Much of this time was in Brazil, where I've caught many monsters before.
00:29Red-bellied piranha.
00:34I'm back to investigate a new story about a triple homicide.
00:40The people who fell in the water actually disappeared.
00:43This is like no creature I've tackled before.
00:46But this thing is different. It has invisible powers.
00:49Chasing this monster takes me into the heart of Brazil's rugged frontier,
00:53where people fear for my life.
00:55He says it will kill you. No two ways about it.
00:58And it leads to possibly the strangest monster catch of my career.
01:03I've chased river monsters all over the world, but I've always considered Brazil my second home.
01:18There's the fish! There's the fish!
01:33This is where I've done most of my fishing.
01:35Look at this!
01:37Catching all manner of freshwater killers.
01:41I've been drawn back by a chilling story about the death of a group of cowboys.
01:49I've heard of a river monster taking an individual before.
01:56But never three people at once.
02:01This is a new killer for me.
02:03My journey begins in Brazil's wild west.
02:14Pará state is cowboy country and outsiders rarely visit.
02:18But I'm on my way to meet an eyewitness to the cowboys' deaths.
02:22I'm travelling by boat along the Tokantins river, so I can start fishing immediately and see what killers are in this area.
02:35During the wet season, this river is connected to the place where the cowboys died, so the monster could have escaped into these waters.
02:42I don't know yet what could be down there, so I have to be prepared for anything.
02:52This is actually a fish I bought down the market this morning.
02:54It's just a tasty, scaly fish.
02:56I'm just going to cut the tail off and use that, I think.
03:00It's a big river, this, and so what you're not doing is casting at random, because the fish won't be distributed at random.
03:06But what we've got here is quite turbulent, and it's also moving back on itself near the bank.
03:11So it's the kind of place where food coming down the river would settle, and that's going to cause the small fish to congregate and then right on up the food chain.
03:30That's the fun thing at the bottom.
03:34It's not long before I get my first bite.
03:37Oh, there we go.
03:38I think something's nibbling that.
03:39Yep.
03:40That's a piranha.
03:41It's a black piranha.
03:42The black piranha is the largest of the piranha family, growing up to a foot and a half long.
03:49A mouth full of razor sharp teeth has given piranhas a fearsome reputation, and it's well earned.
03:56Two years ago, I found a story about a young boy who was devoured by piranhas in front of his grandparents.
04:03All they got in was bones.
04:04It's unlikely that piranhas would have killed all three cowboys.
04:10But I know from experience that you've got to keep an open mind.
04:11Only eliminating a suspect after you've heard all the evidence.
04:12Which is why I'm meeting a witness.
04:13And it's well earned.
04:14Two years ago, I found a story about a young boy who was devoured by piranhas in front of
04:18his grandparents.
04:19All they got in was bones.
04:24It's unlikely that piranhas would have killed all three cowboys.
04:31But I know from experience that you've got to keep an open mind.
04:35Only eliminating a suspect after you've heard all the evidence.
04:39Which is why I'm meeting a witness tomorrow.
04:42Before I track him down, I'll see what other potential suspects are here.
04:49It must be a predator's paradise down there.
04:54Within minutes, something else has grabbed my bait.
05:01This feels much bigger than a black piranha.
05:03Gosh, this is strong.
05:06This is strong.
05:08It's rising up in the wall.
05:09There it is.
05:10Oh, it's a ray.
05:11It's a ray.
05:12The size of that.
05:13This is the first spotted river ray I've ever caught.
05:18I've come across stingrays before.
05:21In Thailand, I've seen how they can seriously injure people.
05:26I want to take a closer look, but I'm not sure how to safely haul it into the boat.
05:31My worry with this fish is getting too close to it.
05:39Its tail has a venomous spike five inches long, which could whip around and stab me as I pull it in.
05:45Taking it to shore and pulling it onto the bank is the best option.
05:52On close inspection, I'm reminded that this can kill as well.
06:00That spine there, very dangerous.
06:03It's just like a knife, five inches long.
06:05That would go in your flesh very easily, be very painful.
06:07And actually, if that's in the wrong part of your body, that could puncture an artery.
06:10That could be fatal.
06:11And these here, look at those.
06:12They don't look very nice either.
06:13Like piranha, this is an unlikely suspect for killing three people at the same time.
06:19But I'll need to hear the witness's account before I can take it off the list.
06:30I've arranged to meet him near where the deaths occurred, just outside the small town of El Dorado.
06:40For the last leg of my journey, I leave the boat behind and drive cross-country.
06:45I'm comfortable in the Brazilian rainforest, but this area is unfamiliar to me, and I'm not sure what to expect.
07:00The whole area was cleared decades ago by ranchers and gold prospectors.
07:09All the wild animals were chased out or killed, making it safe for livestock and humans.
07:16But it seems that a deadly water predator has managed to cling on.
07:25The cowboys' deaths are still raw in the minds of many, and I've been refused access to where they died.
07:33I meet the witness, Reginaldo, at a nearby farm instead.
07:36He tells me that it happened during the wet season, when the pastures were flooded.
07:46A mule had become stuck in the water.
07:51Reginaldo and five other cowboys tried to rescue it.
07:53What they had to do was actually sort of go in and just try and pull the antel out.
08:04The first three cowboys went into the water.
08:07Reginaldo and the others hung back.
08:09As the first horses got up to their bellies, something startled them.
08:22All three cowboys were thrown into the water.
08:25The others immediately got out, before it was too late.
08:26I just asked why he didn't just jump straight in to try and help them, and he said something told me there was something in the water, it wasn't safe, didn't want to be number four, the fourth victim.
08:45People who fell in the water actually disappeared, and we're talking water that was, it sounds like three or four feet deep.
08:58I asked him what that leaves him feeling like. This was six years ago that it happened, and he said it's left this sort of lingering sadness from having lost his colleagues.
09:10Reginaldo's story helps me eliminate some potential suspects.
09:13Piranhas can definitely be taken off the list.
09:19When piranhas attack, it's an unmistakable feeding frenzy, with the water looking as though it's boiling.
09:25But Reginaldo saw only a calm surface.
09:29Also, from Reginaldo's account, stingrays can be struck off the list.
09:35If the cowboys had been fatally stabbed by rays, there would have been huge amounts of blood in the water, which he didn't see.
09:41Reginaldo has his own theory about the killer's identity.
09:48He's given me the name of a terrifying new suspect for the cowboy killer.
09:54It's a creature I've heard about, but never encountered.
09:57I'm in Brazil, searching for a monster that killed three cowboys.
10:15My eyewitness to the event has just given me the name of the prime suspect.
10:23It's a terrifying fish that I've never caught before.
10:28The electric eel.
10:29No, he says, although he didn't actually see anything, I mean, he's pretty certain that, you know, this was electric eels that caused these three men to die.
10:42I have a prime suspect. A monster said to have mythical powers.
10:49And one I always feared I might encounter.
10:53Now I have to try to catch one.
10:56Known locally as Porake, the electric eel isn't actually an eel at all.
11:04It's a member of the knife fish family.
11:07They can be found throughout the Amazon and Orinoco river basins.
11:10They can grow to over eight feet long and deliver a charge that's enough to light up a house.
11:21But is this enough to shock a human being to death?
11:29I've heard stories about electric eels killing people before, but they've never been proven.
11:34I've also heard of murderers blaming electric eels to cover their misdeeds.
11:43But could an eel really kill three people at one time?
11:47I have my doubts.
11:49There are many other animals in these waters that are documented killers, such as anacondas and caimans.
11:57Victims of these predators bear the tell-tale marks of bites or strangulation.
12:02Clues that help identify the culprit.
12:06A victim of electrocution would have no such marks.
12:11My job now is to find out what state the cowboys' corpses were in when they were recovered.
12:19To do this, Reginaldo has put me in contact with a man called Hermes.
12:23He discovered the bodies the next day.
12:30He tells me that the grim search for the three bodies started where the cowboys disappeared.
12:43They actually got boats with motors in the water and they were driving those around to create a disturbance.
12:53The wash from the propellers would churn up anything lying below the surface.
12:59There were no bite marks or anything like that on the bodies.
13:18Having no bites is in line with the prime suspect being an electric eel.
13:22And Hermes has one final revelation about the recovered bodies.
13:35All three had their hands clenched and inside the hands were weed or grass from the bottom of the water.
13:42Clenched hands are a tell-tale clue.
13:50When a person receives a large electric shock, the body's muscles begin to spasm.
13:56Which could explain why the cowboys died with their hands clenched.
14:00This is all strong evidence that an electric eel might be responsible for the cowboys' deaths.
14:11But I wonder how much real proof I'm going to find.
14:18I've got to catch one and see for myself what these fish are capable of.
14:22Normally I can see what I'm up against. Massive teeth, cavernous mouths and tails that can fatally stab you.
14:34The electric eel's invisible powers make it unlike any fish I've gone after before.
14:40I'm hoping to gain some local knowledge at the town's fish market.
14:43The people here are those most likely to have come up against them.
14:56Everywhere I look are toothy, dangerous fish.
14:59But electric eels aren't on the menu.
15:04Fishermen don't fish for them, but the reason they don't fish for them is that they say the shock is very powerful.
15:09Electric eels, or poraque, have been striking fear into people's hearts since long before Europeans arrived in the 16th century.
15:23Before electricity was understood, Brazil's indigenous Tupi people told of a warrior who carelessly dropped a lightning bolt on an eel, giving the fish its mysterious power.
15:39In reality, it's the eel's specially adapted muscles that generate the large shocks.
15:45But does this electricity kill somebody outright, or do they drown after being paralyzed?
15:53When I tell people about my mission to catch one, they're in no doubt about what will happen to me, one way or the other.
16:00He says it will kill you, no two ways about it.
16:01OK.
16:02No.
16:03No.
16:04Don't mess with it, basically.
16:05Don't mess with it.
16:06What I said, is it strong enough to kill?
16:07He said, yeah, absolutely, no doubt about it.
16:12It's looking like it could be a bit of a mission.
16:14I would normally try to apprehend my suspect at the scene of the crime.
16:23But quite apart from the ranch owner's sensitivities, I'm here at the height of the dry season.
16:29The water levels have dropped, and the spot where the cowboys died is now just pasture.
16:34All the fish are now concentrated in the remaining water, in theory making them easier to find.
16:44It's possible that the monster could have moved into the nearest big river, the Araguaia.
16:53One thing is playing on my mind.
16:56Since nobody fishes for electric eels, I haven't been able to get any advice on how to catch them.
17:01I've been warned they're elusive, and tend to show up when least expected.
17:11All I can realistically do is put a bait in the water, and hope an electric eel takes it before something else does.
17:22The thing is, there's loads of predators in these waters, so, you know, I've got a bait on the bottom here,
17:27but, you know, there's lots of other species that could pick it up.
17:30You know, there's no way really to single out the electric eel.
17:33I know I'm doing the right thing to catch one, but something else could beat it to the bait.
17:40Because I don't want to get a nasty shock when I catch an electric eel, I'm taking some precautions.
17:45The nylon line I'm using won't conduct electricity, so I'll be safe while bringing it in.
17:53Then, once I get it to the boat, I have a thick pair of rubber boots and gloves,
17:58which means I'll be able to handle it without getting shocked.
18:00My theory that the fish should be more concentrated here seems to be correct,
18:13as something takes my bait within a matter of minutes.
18:18Good size fish, good size fish.
18:20Is this the electric eel I've been looking for?
18:23The electric eel is known locally as the Porake.
18:31You'll be shocked to hear what this means in the Tupi indigenous language.
18:35Right after this.
18:40In the Tupi indigenous language, Porake means the one who sends you to sleep.
18:53I'm in Brazil, on the Araguaia River, trying to catch my first electric eel,
19:01the prime suspect for killing three cowboys.
19:07There's something on the end of my line, and it's putting up a powerful fight.
19:12I don't think this is an electric eel. It's too strong.
19:16The back four-fifths of an electric eel's body is mostly used to produce electricity.
19:23It doesn't have the muscle to put up a struggle like this.
19:29Oh, yeah, yeah, see those bubbles coming up?
19:30That's a big red-tailed catfish, big red-tailed catfish.
19:37Out of the water, it gulps in air, blowing it out through its gill flaps.
19:44Got it, got it, got it, got it.
19:48Very strong fish, but it tends to not have the stamina.
19:51Another thing to remark about this fish, it's about a third of the body is head, huge head.
19:58Look at this. This river is just full of predators.
20:01There's a big chunk of fin missing there.
20:05I get the fish back in the water so it can recover before I let it go.
20:09It just proves my point, what I was saying earlier on.
20:13You throw a bit of dead fish in this river and there's anything that could take it.
20:17You know, it could be an electric eel, that's what I was hoping for,
20:19but, you know, it could just as likely be one of these red-tailed catfish.
20:24That was a great catch, but unfortunately it's not the fish I'm after.
20:36I need to find out more about electric eels, anything about them which may help me catch one.
20:49I'm meeting up with a fish expert from the University of Pará, Dr Jonathan Reddy.
20:54He has a couple of specimens in a tank so I can get my first proper look at an electric eel.
21:04These fish are using their electric capability all the time.
21:07They're constantly sending out little pulses.
21:11Smaller eels like these deliver a less powerful shot than the larger ones,
21:15but they can still pack a punch.
21:17Wearing protective rubber gloves, Jonathan shows me this by hooking one up to a bank of LEDs.
21:28It lights them up using muscles that have been modified into thousands of special cells,
21:33which work in a similar way to AA batteries.
21:37Each individual cell generates around a tenth of a volt,
21:40but when they all fire together a large pulse is produced.
21:44It uses this high voltage to shock prey and for defence.
21:53So this voltage is just for a very short while, 400, 500 volts.
21:58The bigger eels, they're known to be up to 600 volts, maybe even above.
22:03That's almost the same as the voltage produced by a heart defibrillator.
22:09Electric eels also generate a low energy pulse of around 10 volts,
22:12which they use to survey their surroundings, helping to compensate for their poor eyesight.
22:18It can see even in muddy water by using its electro-receptors to detect distortions in its electrical field.
22:28Her pulse is emitted every few seconds, and these can be picked up by placing electrodes in the water and amplifying the signal.
22:34There you see, a wave of signals as they try and work out what's going on.
22:41So my finger in there wouldn't feel this, it's only...
22:46You wouldn't feel this.
22:47Small orienting pulses are harmless.
22:53But the bigger shocks are up to 65 times more powerful and can travel through water.
22:59When they're about to stun something, do you get much warning if they're going to do that?
23:02Do I hear a...
23:03You will get some kind of warning, but it might not be too much for you to react in time.
23:08No shock this time.
23:22I'm hoping this equipment will help me locate them in the wild.
23:29Electric eels are proving to be very elusive.
23:32And large rivers have too many places to hide.
23:37A farmer called Milton knows the perfect place where electric eels could be trapped.
23:44I'm going to fish in a small lake which got cut off when the water levels dropped at the start of the dry season.
23:51It's three miles inland from the Araguaia, so he gives me and my boat a lift.
24:02Electric eels come up for air every 10 to 15 minutes.
24:13They get 80% of their oxygen by absorbing it through blood vessels in the mouth.
24:21If I pick up a signal and wait, I'll know I'm in the right position to spot one when it comes up to breathe.
24:32There was something just surface, made some rings just by that bit of wood there.
24:37Which could have been electric eels coming up for air.
24:44I'm not hearing anything.
24:48I've swept the entire lake with no success.
24:51Well, this equipment worked very well in the tank, but it's not really picking up anything here that I can recognise as being definitely electric eels.
25:02So I think I'm going to return to doing what I know best, and that is getting a line in the water.
25:11Next to the lake is a small pond.
25:13Milton tells me it's full of a toothy fish called triera, which he says is good for bait.
25:22He gives me a bamboo rod to catch them as the locals do.
25:30Most fishing you're being quite stealthy.
25:33You're creeping up, you're putting the bait in the water quietly.
25:35Triera are very inquisitive.
25:36They lie in shallow water, and if they hear a sound, rather than head in the opposite direction, they actually come and investigate.
25:51That's the triera.
25:53Those teeth are probably almost as vicious as the piranhas.
25:56There's a bit gap-toothed, but those teeth are very sharp.
26:00That's the start towards getting some bait.
26:02Unlike electric eels, triera are proving incredibly easy to catch.
26:19They're also very slippery, it's like a bar of soap with teeth.
26:25Progress stops when my hook gets caught on an underwater branch.
26:28I'm not prepared for what I find at the end of my snagged line.
26:33Oh, oh, oh, oh!
26:35F***!
26:37Where?
26:38In here.
26:39In here!
26:49I'm on the hunt for an electric eel, my prime suspect for killing three cowboys.
26:54While fishing for bait and trying to free a snagged line, I'm startled by what I find, because I may have just stumbled across one of these deadly creatures.
27:05Here.
27:07In here.
27:09I've seen the belois in this Nile-scars.
27:11It's amazing, that's for the starfish.
27:14But it's a case of mistaken identity.
27:16Non-electric eel, it's an eel.
27:18There's actually not an electric eel, it's an eel.
27:20That's an eel.
27:21This is a moussoum.
27:23It may look like a true eel.
27:24But it is, in fact, another elongated fish.
27:26For a moment there, I was worried.
27:28I saw this long snake-like thing on the line.
27:29I wasn't hanging around to have a closer look.
27:31I was out of the water.
27:32water. If this was an electric eel this size, that could be potentially fatal.
27:40Strange sort of admission to me. I'm actually glad that wasn't the fish that I was after.
27:53I'm not having much luck catching an electric eel. It's proving far harder to find than I expected.
27:59But I've gotten word of another attack and I'm heading out to investigate.
28:06It happened in 2007 on a farm near Villanova, where a 21-year-old farm worker called Francisco
28:13died in a small pond. I've traveled there to meet up with his friend Fernando,
28:19the only witness to Francisco's last moments.
28:30Francisco had only been working at the farm for two weeks,
28:32when he decided to go fishing in a nearby pond.
28:40Fernando warned him about the electric eels he'd seen there, but Francisco carried on anyway.
28:45They were fishing with a sort of basket. You go in the water and you run this along the bottom
28:53of the pond and then you see if you've got any fish in the basket.
28:57And he said, you know, they tried a couple of times, hadn't caught anything.
29:06Fernando was staying on the bank. He didn't want to get in the water.
29:08So what he did, he ran for help, came back with two other people. And when they got there,
29:25there was no sign of anybody, no sign of Francisco.
29:27They started searching for his body by dragging a wooden hoe through the water.
29:38Eventually, Francisco's body rose to the surface with a macabre addition.
29:46The body of the eel was wrapped around the boy's body.
29:49Only when it was pulled right into the shallows did it actually then disappear back into the water.
30:02Now, Fernando, like me, you know, he'd heard stories that this is a fish that's capable of
30:05killing people, but he didn't really believe that, hadn't heard anything very definite.
30:09So when he saw what actually did happen, he said he almost didn't believe it.
30:20I've never heard of the situation of someone being killed by a fish in such a small volume of water.
30:30But the other thing that really struck me was that, unlike the case of the three cowboys who were
30:35killed, I mean, here there was absolutely no doubt what animal was responsible. There was a 100%
30:40positive ID, you know, this was an electric eel that killed Francisco.
30:44Finally, clear evidence of an electric eel causing a human death. What I don't know, though,
30:52is whether victims drown after being shocked or die from electrocution.
31:00I've tracked down Dr. Ivo Panovic, the pathologist who performed Francisco's autopsy.
31:06So I just asked Dr. Ivo Panovic, you know, a simple question, is the electric eel capable
31:22of killing a human being? And the answer, a very clear, yes.
31:27He goes on to tell me exactly how Francisco died.
31:30It sounds like it was actually the heart was stopped, so instead of actually contracting
31:43strongly to circulate the blood, it had gone into some kind of fibrillation.
31:49In that kind of situation, you know, drowning is almost secondary.
31:54The immediate cause of the death was the electricity of the fish.
31:58This is exactly the evidence I've been searching for.
32:05There's only one thing left to do, catch the culprit, without ending up on Dr. Ivo's slab.
32:12I've found conclusive proof that an electric eel can kill a person outright.
32:34Now I've got to catch one in the wild, without receiving a lethal shock.
32:42The locals tell me electric eels lurk here.
32:49I'm wearing my protective rubber boots and the rubber gloves are on standby in case I catch one.
32:54I've just seen something surface.
32:58I've also ditched my carbon fibre rod in favour of a bamboo pole.
33:01Perfect for small ponds like this, and with the added advantage that it won't conduct electricity.
33:09That's Triera. Oops.
33:17Once again, aggressive Triera are proving no problem to catch.
33:23I actually thought that might have been an electric eel, because the take was not characteristic of Triera.
33:28Triera normally is a very sort of jagged, quick take.
33:31That was quite fiddly and the line going out slowly, so I thought it might have been an electric eel, but another Triera.
33:39I'm becoming increasingly frustrated.
33:44Because the final question still lingers.
33:47Is one eel capable of killing three men?
33:50Little is known about electric eel behaviour, so just seeing one in the wild, never mind catching one, might help me answer this last question.
34:05I know now that this is an animal that's capable of killing people, it's got nothing to fear from other animals.
34:11And at times it certainly seems to be pretty bold, but, you know, where are they?
34:17I think, you know, I've got to give this some real serious thought about what I do now, if I'm actually to succeed in catching one of these things.
34:30The electric eel's elusiveness isn't the only thing going against me.
34:40It was on a night like this when, according to Tupi legend, the ancestral electric eel received its heaven sent powers.
34:49When a lightning bolt was dropped on it.
34:54But the rain that's falling for the first time in months is about to make my job much harder.
35:02Soon the eels will no longer be concentrated in the shallow dry season ponds.
35:11I was getting close, but with this, you know, it could mean that my window of opportunity is rapidly closing.
35:20It could actually be too late, this could ruin it, this could mean that I actually don't find my electric eel.
35:25The water is rising, and all the small ponds and waterways are starting to link up again, allowing the eels to disperse.
35:44This makes an already elusive creature nearly impossible to find.
35:48My best option is to travel east, to where the rains haven't yet hit.
35:58I fish as I go, but I'm still catching everything but an electric eel.
36:04This is a thing called a fidalgo, it's a type of catfish.
36:07Not an electric eel.
36:09My last hope is an area just southwest of Marabah, where it's still tinder dry, and fires are burning everywhere.
36:18The water here is at its absolute lowest.
36:25And at daybreak, I'll have the best chance I'm going to get before the rains sweep in.
36:34After asking around, I get a promising lead about a tiny pool right in the middle of cattle pasture.
36:39It's more like a mud puddle.
36:47The last place I'd expect to find a river monster.
36:50Finally, after 10 days of searching, a giant electric eel is right in front of me.
37:06Does that look like just one of these branches, one of these roots? That is an electric eel. It's a big one.
37:11It's a big one.
37:13Now I've got to work up the nerve to catch it.
37:15I've travelled the world, tracking down river monsters in some of the most dangerous waters imaginable.
37:33But my journey to catch a deadly electric eel ends at a mud hole in the middle of cattle pasture.
37:43It's the last place on earth I'd expect to find an elusive, lethal fish.
37:47I'm just making a bit of a trench. From my point of view, it'll be easier to handle if there's
37:54some kind of sort of notch that it's in rather than it's being able to slip and slide all over the place.
38:00My normal capture method would be useless in water this shallow.
38:04So out goes the rod and in comes a lasso, fitting for cowboy country.
38:08Because electric eels don't rely on physical strength, pulling it out of the water shouldn't be that hard.
38:20But not getting shocked will be. So protective clothing is essential.
38:25We've got a plan. The plan is not so much to sort of go after the head with the noose,
38:31but to position that and then get it to go through the noose.
38:34It's just taking a few deep breaths because one slip and, you know, it could be very nasty indeed.
38:41Need to be so focused and so careful about this.
38:50An eel this size can deliver a shock of 650 volts. That's enough to stop my heart in seconds.
39:04First go. Amazing. First go.
39:11Electric eels can keep on shocking out of water, but the rubber gloves we're wearing protect us from this.
39:17Look at the colours on this thing. I've got to give it a clean.
39:22That is, it's doing a sort of, it looks like a muscle contraction.
39:26Spasm almost. That's when it's actually shocking.
39:28Because electric eels get most of their oxygen from breathing air,
39:34they can stay out of water for long periods of time.
39:42That's five foot ten and a half. That's pretty much exactly the same as, as me.
39:50This is exactly the same size as the eel that killed Francisco,
39:54the 21-year-old man who died in the tiny pond near Villa Nova.
40:03If I wasn't wearing these rubber gloves, I could be dead too.
40:09It's over 100 degrees and I don't want the fish to overheat, so time it went back in the water.
40:14The pond may be shallow at the moment, but the rains are not far behind me.
40:25The waters will soon rise, giving this eel the freedom to roam once again.
40:31My search led me to this tiny drying out puddle. I mean, the water in there is barely six inches deep.
40:37It's the last place you'd expect to find a river monster, but that's where it was.
40:43There's more. There's more. There's more.
40:46It's not just this big one, but again, it looks like wood, but it started moving.
40:50We were watching it and it looks like there's actually several, but smaller, right in with these roots here.
40:56I've just never seen anything like this before. It's like a tangle of bodies. I'm just trying to count the heads.
41:07The more I look, the more I see. I was thinking 10 or a dozen. I think there could be 20 down here.
41:13This is an incredible discovery and answers the final question about how the cowboys died.
41:18I believe a group of electric eels like this was trapped in a pool over the dry season.
41:29When the rains came, the water levels got higher until the eels could all leave into the swelling waterways.
41:38It was in these waterways where the trio of unlucky cowboys came across them.
41:43After their startled horses threw them into the water.
41:49Each one of these eels could deliver a fatal shock.
41:54So a group of 20 would easily be capable of killing the cowboys.
42:02This journey has once again proved to me that there's no end to lethal river monsters.
42:08And that they can be found anywhere.
42:11Who knows where I'll find one next.
42:18Want to know how to catch a river monster of your own?
42:20I'll show you how at animalplanet.com slash river monsters.