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These animals have a specialized organ – precisely called an electrical organ –, composed of cells that differentiated from the muscles during their evolution. Just as muscles generate electricity when they contract, by the entry and exit of ions from their cells, each electrocyte (cell of the electrical organ) also continuously charges and discharges. Each time the electrocytes are stimulated by a command from the brain, they produce a small electrical discharge of approximately 120 thousandths of a volt (120 millivolts). As the electric organ is formed by thousands of electrocytes that discharge at the same time, a fish like the Brazilian puraquê (Electrophorus electricus), over 2 meters long, can generate more than 600 volts in a single discharge. “Puraquê is just one of more than 120 species of electric fish that exist in South America.
All other species produce weaker discharges, which vary between less than 1 volt and 5 volts”, says biologist José Alves Gomes, from the National Institute for Research in the Amazon. There are also electric fish in rivers in Africa. In the oceans, there are two species of stingray and one of fish capable of emitting electrical discharges.
Discharge from an electric fish can reach 600 V, more than five times that of a 110 V socket
1. Certain fish muscle cells, called electrocytes, have an excess of negatively charged ions (electrified atoms)
2. Commanded by the animal’s brain, these cells release negative charges to the outside, generating electrical potentials of around 120 millivolts, which, added together, can reach 600 volts