Mary Allen
Electric eels are among the strangest freshwater fish: they can deliver powerful electric shocks, which they use to kill their prey.
Characteristics
What do electric eels look like?
Electric eels are not eels. Rather, they form their own suborder, namely that of the electric and knife eels. Since their body looks like that of our native river eel, they are still called eels. Electric eels have a long, serpentine body with a broad, flattened head and a powerful mouth. The body is slightly thicker behind the head: all organs are located in this part of the body.
The largest part of the fish consists of the long tail. Electric eels grow up to 2.8 meters long and weigh up to 20 kilograms. Males are significantly larger than females. The body of the electric eel is round in cross-section, they have no scales and no dorsal, caudal, or ventral fins.
Where are electric eels?
Electric eels are only at home in tropical South America. They are most commonly found in the streams of the Amazon Basin and the Orinoco.
Where do electric eels live?
Electric eels are purely freshwater fish. They prefer the large, calm-flowing rivers whose water is muddy and low in oxygen. They are not found in fast-flowing waters. They mainly live in rivers with a temperature of 23° to 28° Celsius.
What species of electric eel are there?
Four families belong to the suborder of electric and knife eels: the electric eels, the real knife eels, the tailfin knife eels, and the American knife fish. There are a total of 40 different species of electric and knife eel.
How old do electric eels get?
Nothing is known about the life expectancy of electric eels.
How do electric eels live?
Electric eels are very special fish: Four-fifths of their body consists of the tail muscle, which has been transformed into an electrical organ. They can use it to deliver powerful electric shocks. These electric shocks reach a voltage of up to 700 volts.
Although other species of fish can also generate electric shocks, only electric eels can reach such a high voltage. Electric rays, for example, only produce shocks of 200 volts. With their electric shocks, electric eels kill or paralyze their prey: With the help of their long tails, they can stalk their victims almost unnoticed. Within two to three thousandths of a second, they can produce four to eight surges of electricity. An electric eel can even emit up to 150 electric shocks in an hour.
For this reason, electric eels used to be very feared by the Indians in South America – because under certain circumstances, electric shocks from an electric eel can even kill a person or a horse. The first to report about the electric eels was the famous naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.
Electric eels not only use electric shocks to catch prey, but also to defend themselves in the event of danger. In addition, weaker current surges are used for orientation in murky river water and for territorial demarcation. With the help of special sensory cells, electric eels can sense when other animals invade the electrical field emanating from their body.
Electric eels have another special feature that sets them apart from other fish: their gills have become so stunted over the course of their development that they have to absorb oxygen through the skin in their oral cavity. Therefore, they have to come to the surface of the water to breathe every 15 minutes.
Electric eels are nocturnal animals. That’s why they only have very small eyes. During the day they rest, partly burrowing into the muddy bottom of the rivers.
Friends and foes of electric eels
Electric eels have almost no enemies because they can defend themselves well with their powerful electric shocks.
How do electric eels reproduce?
Electric eels use electric shocks to seek out their mate for mating, but they only produce faint shocks that a potential mate can feel in the murky water. Reproduction usually takes place between September and December. The males build nests from aquatic plants and guard the eggs and later the larvae. These are just ten centimeters long when they hatch.
How do electric eels hunt?
Electric eels are predatory fish. They hunt fish, amphibians and small mammals. They hunt their prey and stun them with electric shocks.
What do electric eels eat?
Electric eels kill prey such as fish, amphibians and mammals with the help of electric shocks. Young electric eels first feed on invertebrates such as freshwater shrimp that live at the bottom of rivers.