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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.
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 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]
Ampullae of Lorenzini (sg.: ampulla) are electroreceptors, sense organs able to detect electric fields. They form a network of mucus-filled pores in the skin of cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, and chimaeras) and of basal bony fishes such as reedfish, [1] sturgeon, [2] and lungfish. [1]
The abilities of the electric fish to communicate and identify sex, age, and hierarchy within the species are also made possible through electric fields. EF gradients as low as 5nV/cm can be found in some saltwater weakly electric fish. [27] Several basal bony fishes, including the paddlefish (Polyodon spathula), possess electroreceptors.