Card #075 · Fish
Electric eel
Electrophorus electricus
Common LC · Least Concern
Field notes
- Classification
- Order Gymnotiformes · Family Gymnotidae
- Range
- Guiana Shield, northern South America
- Size
- Up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in)
- Weight
- Up to 20 kg (44 lb)
- Lifespan
- ~20 yrs (captive)
- Diet
- Fish, invertebrates
Most Notable
Until 2019 this was the only electric eel. Then the genus split in three, and the famous 860 volt record turned out to belong to a neighbour, Electrophorus voltai. This one tops out near 480.
Eighteenth century naturalists cut one open to work out how a living animal could store and release a shock. Their reports reached Alessandro Volta, who stacked discs of metal and brine soaked card in imitation of its stacked electric organ, and in 1800 that pile became the first battery.
It is not an eel. It belongs to the knifefishes, and its nearest relatives are catfish rather than the true eels it was named after.
It has to breathe air. Its gills are reduced, so it surfaces every few minutes and takes oxygen across a frilled, blood rich lining inside its mouth, drowning if held under.
It aims as well as it fires. It can curl its body to bring head and tail together and concentrate the field, and will rear up to press its chin against a large threat and deliver the shock directly.
Range: Fresh waters of the Guiana Shield, South America.