“In spite of all human impact on the Amazon rainforest in the last 50 years, we can still discover giant fishes like the two new species of electric eels,” said lead researcher C David de Santana, a zoologist working with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
The electric eel, which is a kind of fish rather than an eel, inspired the design of the first electric battery.
analysis, including of DNA from 107 samples they collected, upended centuries of assumptions and revealed three species: the previously known Electrophorus electricus, along with Electrophorus voltai and Electrophorus varii.
And their research also uncovered another stunning result: E. voltai is capable of delivering a jolt of 860 volts – much more than the 650 volts previously recorded from electric eels – “making it the strongest bioelectricity generator known”.
The researchers found each of the three species had a clearly defined habitat, with E. electricus living in the Guiana Shield region, E. voltai in the Brazilian Shield, a highland further south, and E. varii inhabiting slow-flowing lowland Amazon basin waters.
And they suggest that the particularly strong electric shock that E. voltai can produce could be an adaptation to life in highland waters, where conductivity is reduced.
SOURCE: https://apnews.com/c7b9a629f32d0cbd0598d9c9755ef58bShocked? Electric eel powers aquarium’s Christmas lights
Visitors to the Tennessee Aquarium may be shocked to learn that an electric eel named Miguel Wattson is lighting up a Christmas tree.
A special system connected to Miguel’s tank enables his shocks to power strands of lights on a nearby tree, according to a news release.
Miguel releases low-voltage blips of electricity when he is trying to find food, aquarist Kimberly Hurt said. That translates to a rapid, dim blinking of the Christmas lights. When he is eating or excited he emits higher voltage shocks which cause bigger flashes.
Wattson has his own Twitter account where he shares tweets generated by his sparky self, courtesy of coding by Tennessee Tech University’s iCube center. ...
In between Miguel’s tweets boasting statements like “SHAZAM!!!!” and “ka-BLAMEROO!!!!!,” a video posted to the account shows Miguel shaking in his tank as lights on the nearby tree sputter on and off. ...
Thinking outside the box from the tank. I like the pun on the eel's name.Here's a new spin on holidaze museum exhibits ... An aquarium has wired its electric eel's enclosure so that the eel's electrical discharges trigger and illuminate nearby Xmas lights.
SOURCE: https://apnews.com/c7b9a629f32d0cbd0598d9c9755ef58b
Electric eels can supercharge their attacks by working together
Their shock can be 10 times more powerful as a group.
Stunning new video footage captures electric eels in the Amazon hunting in groups of more than 100. Deadly packs then splinter off to collectively deliver a supercharged jolt that blasts fish out of the water, a new study finds.
This is the first time such group hunting has been seen in Volta's electric eels (Electrophorus voltai), a type of knifefish already known for individually producing the strongest electric shock of any animal.
The video footage, which was described Jan. 14 in the journal Ecology and Evolution, was captured at a small lake on the banks of the Iriri River in Brazil. "It's really amazing to find a behavior like that with eels that are 2.4, 2.5 meters [around 8 feet] long," David de Santana, a zoologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and co-author of the new study, told Live Science. ...
The newly documented group hunting method, involves up to 100 electric eels encircling shoals of small tetra fish to form a "prey ball," then herding them toward shallower waters. Then, some eels (between two and 10 individuals) splinter off from the main group and move closer to the ball to deliver a supercharged jolt of electricity.
The synchronized shock is so powerful that some of the shoaling fish are blasted out of the water and land back on the surface stunned. They then float motionless, becoming an easy catch for the predatory eels. ...
"Indigenous people in Venezuela called it arimna, or “something that deprives you of motion.” Early European naturalists referred to it as the “numb-eel.” And for 250 years, since it was first given a Latin name, Western scientists have known it as Electrophorus electricus, the electric eel, the sole member of its genus ..."Saw the question somewhere 'what did they call electric eels before electricity ?' (was it on this forum ?) and have that thought tumbling over and over in my brain. Yeah yeah I know electricity was discovered, not invented - doesn't help.
Sorry.Oh, that is a very interesting question
We've got a ray that gives a bit of a shock when touched or handled, down here in Australia - It's a bit of a bastard because it's sluggish, likes to bury itself in mud or sand, and is easily trod on."Indigenous people in Venezuela called it arimna, or “something that deprives you of motion.” Early European naturalists referred to it as the “numb-eel.” And for 250 years, since it was first given a Latin name, Western scientists have known it as Electrophorus electricus, the electric eel, the sole member of its genus ..."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/electric-eel-three-species-what-a-shock/597709/
Saw the question somewhere 'what did they call electric eels before electricity ?' ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrophorus_electricusThe species is so unusual that it has been reclassified several times. When originally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766, he used the name Gymnotus electricus, placing it in the same genus as Gymnotus carapo (banded knifefish) which he had described several years earlier.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/electricelectric (adj.)
1640s, first used in English by physician Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), apparently coined as Modern Latin electricus (literally "resembling amber") by English physicist William Gilbert (1540-1603) in treatise "De Magnete" (1600), from Latin electrum"amber," from Greek ēlektron "amber" (Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus) ...
Originally the word described substances which, like amber, attract other substances when rubbed. Meaning "charged with electricity" is from 1670s ...