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In biology, the electric organ is an organ that an electric fish uses to create an electric field. Electric organs are derived from modified muscle or in some cases nerve tissue , called electrocytes, and have evolved at least six times among the elasmobranchs and teleosts .
Electric organ discharges are two types, pulse and wave, and vary both by species and by function. Electric fish have evolved many specialised behaviours. The predatory African sharptooth catfish eavesdrops on its weakly electric mormyrid prey to locate it when hunting, driving the prey fish to develop electric signals that are harder to detect.
The main organ is the first electric organ to develop, followed by Sachs' organ and then Hunter's organ. All the electric organs are differentiated by the time the body reaches a length of 23 cm (9.1 in). Electric eels are able to produce electrical discharges when they are as small as 7 cm (2.8 in). [54]
Active electrolocation is practised by two groups of weakly electric fish, the Gymnotiformes (knifefishes) and the Mormyridae (elephantfishes), and by Gymnarchus niloticus, the African knifefish. An electric fish generates an electric field using an electric organ, modified from muscles in its tail. The field is called weak if it is only enough ...
The German zoologist Carl Sachs was sent to Latin America by the physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond, to study the electric eel; [15] he took with him a galvanometer and electrodes to measure the fish's electric organ discharge, and used rubber gloves ("Kautschuck-Handschuhen") to enable him to catch the fish without being shocked, to the ...
These fish possess electric organs that allow them to produce electric fields, which are usually weak. In most gymnotiforms, the electric organs are derived from muscle cells. However, adult apteronotids are one exception, as theirs are derived from nerve cells (spinal electromotor neurons).
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The returns from the pulses, distorted by any nearby objects such as prey, are detected by the knollenorgans distributed around the fish's body. A Knollenorgan is an electroreceptor in the skin of weakly electric fish of the family Mormyridae (Elephantfish) from Africa. The structure was first described by Viktor Franz (1921), a German ...