#electrolocation

This is giving me mermaid vibes. I think this kind of sense is fine as long as it doesn’t replace sight. This is an extra sense. Not sight specifically. I also think being able to detect living things makes sense and wouldn’t replace sight.

I know I've been gone a while; that's why I moved forwards the highly anticipated electric eel post to today. As I had said though, these facts are at my convenience, not yours.

Now, the first thing to know is obvi that electric eels are eels, as we covered. They're knifefish, which are of the order gymnotiformes, and from there, they are in the family of gymnotidae, which has banded knifefish and electric eels. Then, from there, electric eels have their own genus, which is, of course, electrophorus.

Now, I know you immediately went "Genus?! As in more than one species?" Well, for one, genera can contain only one species. (That's called a monotypic genus, monotypic meaning a category containing only one subordinate category.) But, also, yes, there are three different species of electric eels. Granted, that wasn't the case until literally six years ago. (There's like a whole drama on the, like, naming of the species/genus and a whole buncha other stuff, but I'll only go into it is y'all ask.)

Now, I know what your minds all immediately went to; electroreception/genesis. It's kind of a given with anything in the knifefish order. Plus, these are literally called electrophorus electricus; your mind's gonna go to electricity. But, there's soooo much more interesting stuff about these cuties!

For one, there's, like, just their discovery. Now, your mind probs immediately went "Well, they're Southern American, so while they were known very long before then, the discovery was def attributed to the king of Spain as all discoveries then were." You'd be wrong, not about them being known about way before then, but about the Spain part. See, the first mention of them in writing was actually by a French Jesuit priest, and the first research into them was done by a French military surgeon, who wanted to know if the electricity could be used as an anesthetic (it couldn't), and another Jesuit priest, who had dedicated his life to understanding silk (this guy has no certificate of death btw).

Then, there's that they breath air. Now, it's not uncommon for fish to have lungs and be able to breathe air for short periods, but electric eel's primary source of air is by buccal pumping. (Plus, most air-breathing fish still inhale through their gills. Electric eels buccal pump, which means mouth breath.) In the vast, and I mean very very very vast, majority of fish, breathing air just means they're able to survive out of water for a bit, so they can move from pond to pond in the case of being land locked. Electric eels need to poke their head out of the water around every two minutes.

Now, onto the electrogenesis, though I could totally rant about these cuties for another while. The first thing you gotta know is that electric eels have three electric organs, not one. Plus, they're in freshwater, which means their electric shocks are suuuuuper weak compared to what they'd do if they were saltwater, and their pretty normally recognized at producing discharges as strong as 600 volts. (That's enough to power 5 lightbulbs in pulses about 1 amp apart.)

Okay, yeah, I missed a day again. So, what? I'm allowed to take a break when I'm tired! Besides, today's fish is lit a ghost! That's rlly October-y and scary, right?

So, we're act on knifefish now! Isn't that super rad! Now, you act get the genus, not those invasive featherbacks. (I'd call invasive species scarier than these fellers tho.)

Anyway, onto the actual family we're focusing on! (Oh, what? You wanted a species? I think families are cooler, and it lets me focus on individual species if I want to later. Plus, then, if I do focus on an individual species, I can reference this family post to tell y'all about the general stuff.) The first thing you noticed was probs the whole "ghost" part, right? They're called that because, in some Native American beliefs, they were spirits visiting earth. (Also, because conquistadors though everything in The New World was evil, so they named stuff forebodingly, which is where stuff like killifish comes from. They'd name them first; then, when they were forced to, they'd reason out the most nonsensical stuff.)

They're mostly nocturnal, and the most popular stuff on them comes from the Black Ghost Knifefish, 'cause they're better for aquariums. (Good as an electric fish that's carnivorous can be anyway.)

I know what you're here for tho. The electrocommunication, right? Well, these fellers have some of the best recorded safe to be around electrocommunication on the market. See, most of research into electrocommunication is sent towards electric eels because that's pretty obvi, but the Bakken Museum had ghost knifefish. That way, goers could hear fish communicate via the museum converting their electric waves to sound waves. From that, we've gotten most of our information on reproduction, communication, jamming avoidance behavior, and natural FMs (Frequency Modulations).

First thing to know is that there's two types of electrogenesis/reception. There's wave and pulse types. Ghost knifefish use wave type because they use passive electrolocation in combination with their LLS to hunt. That means they use electricity waves, not pulses, which means they have a predictable frequency and social behaviors having to do with electricity waves.