Animal
Electric eel
The electric eel is a long fish that can make electricity. It lives in rivers in the rainforests of South America.
The electric eel is a long, snake-shaped fish from South America that makes its own electricity. It uses weak pulses to find its way and talk, and strong ones to catch food. Despite its name, it is not a true eel at all.
Electrophorus electricus is a gymnotiform knifefish whose electric organs fill about 80 percent of its body. Since 2019, scientists have recognized three electric eel species; E. electricus in the strict sense lives in rivers of the Guiana Shield. It breathes air, navigates by weak discharges and hunts with high-voltage ones.
Photo: Steven G. Johnson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the electric eel
The electric eel is a long, dark fish.
It can make electricity inside its body. It uses electricity to find its way and to catch food. It lives in rainforest rivers.
The electric eel is a long fish with a flat head and smooth, dark skin. It can grow to 2 to 2.5 meters, longer than a tall grown-up.
Its name is a puzzle. It looks like an eel, but it is actually a knifefish, more closely related to catfish and carp than to true eels. What makes it famous is electricity: special organs inside its body make electric pulses, some weak and some very strong.
Electrophorus electricus belongs to the Gymnotiformes, the South American knifefishes; Smithsonian's National Zoo notes that it is more closely related to catfish and carp than to true eels. More than 220 knifefish species in its lineage use electric discharges to sense and communicate.
In 2019 a team led by Smithsonian scientists analyzed 107 specimens and concluded that what had been treated as one species for 250 years is three: E. electricus in the Guiana Shield, E. voltai in the Brazilian Shield and E. varii in the lowland Amazon basin. For E. voltai they recorded a discharge of 860 volts, well above the roughly 650 volts long cited for electric eels.
Quick facts
- Group
- Fish
- Length
- 2 to 2.5 m
- Lifespan in the wild
- 10 to 22 years
Where it lives
Electric eels live in South America.
Electric eels swim in rivers, ponds and flooded forests. This kind of electric eel lives in rocky rivers in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
Electric eels as a group live in fresh water across northern South America, from quiet oxbow lakes, pools and flooded forests to rocky rivers.
Since scientists split electric eels into three species, the one with the original name, Electrophorus electricus, is known only from rivers of the Guiana Shield in the north of the continent, where streams run over rock, with rapids and waterfalls. The IUCN lists it in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Its two cousins live mostly farther south, across Brazil and the Amazon.
The IUCN global assessment (published 2023) lists E. electricus as native to French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname, consistent with the 2019 finding that the species is restricted to the Guiana Shield. Its type locality is in Suriname. De Santana and colleagues describe shield rivers as well oxygenated and low in conductivity, with rocky beds, rapids and waterfalls, unlike the lowland Amazon floodplain where E. varii lives.
Smithsonian's National Zoo, describing electric eels of the Amazon and Orinoco before the split, explains how wet and dry seasons reshape their habitat. In the rains, rivers reconnect lakes and ponds and young eels spread out; as the water falls, eels can be stranded in shallow, oxygen-poor pools, where their air-breathing helps them survive.
Continent
Where can you find this animal?
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Rivers of the Guiana Shield in Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, as listed by the IUCN. French Guiana is part of France and is not shown separately on this map. Its two close relatives, recognized in 2019, live mostly farther south in Brazil and the Amazon basin.
Places: Guyana and Suriname.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in Brazil, Suriname, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Guyana, Ecuador, Bolivia and 5 more places.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
What it eats
Electric eels eat fish, insects and frogs.
The water is dark and muddy. So the eel uses electricity to find its food. Baby eels eat tiny animals.
Adult electric eels are carnivores. They eat fish, crustaceans, insects and small animals with backbones, such as frogs. Young eels eat mostly tiny invertebrates, animals without backbones.
In dark, muddy water, food is hard to see. Sensors along the eel's body feel tiny movements in the water. When it senses something nearby, the eel gives two quick electric pulses that make hidden prey twitch, showing exactly where it is. Then a fast burst of stronger pulses stops the prey from moving.
Adults are generalist carnivores taking fish, crustaceans, insects and small vertebrates; juveniles feed mainly on invertebrates, and newly hatched young eat unhatched eggs (Smithsonian's National Zoo).
Hunting combines senses. The lateral line detects pressure changes; when prey is suspected, the eel emits a doublet, two rapid electric pulses that make the prey's muscles twitch involuntarily and so reveal it. A volley of up to about 400 pulses per second then immobilizes the prey. The sequence is too fast for human eyes to follow in detail.
Did you know?
Electric eels must swim up to breathe air.
Electric eels breathe air through their mouths. They surface again and again to take a gulp.
As obligate air-breathers, they meet most oxygen needs through a vascularized mouth lining rather than gills.
A living battery
Most of an electric eel's body makes electricity.
Its skin is dark and smooth, with no scales. Its throat is orange. It swims up to the top to breathe air.
About 80 percent of an electric eel's body is filled with three electric organs. The other organs are packed into the front of its body, just behind the head.
It has thick skin with no scales, dark gray to brown above and yellow-orange underneath. It has no back fin. Instead a long fin underneath ripples so it can swim forward, backward or hover. Electric eels must breathe air: they come up to the surface and gulp air into a mouth lined with folds full of blood vessels.
Three electric organs, the main organ, Hunter's organ and Sachs' organ, make up about 80 percent of the body. The Zoo reports that the main organ and two-thirds of Hunter's organ produce strong discharges, while the rest of Hunter's organ and Sachs' organ produce weak ones, about 10 volts according to de Santana et al.
The fish lacks dorsal and pelvic fins and has a reduced tail fin; an elongated anal fin provides fine control. It is an obligate air-breather: a heavily vascularized, folded mouth lining takes up oxygen, which suits warm, oxygen-poor water where gills alone would not be enough.
Spit nests and fathers
Electric eel dads build a nest out of spit.
The mom lays her eggs in the dry season. The dad guards the babies until the rains come.
Electric eels breed in the dry season. A female lays between 1,200 and 1,700 eggs, and the male builds a nest made of saliva, or spit.
The father guards the young until the rainy season begins. Newly hatched eels even eat the eggs that have not hatched. When the rains come and rivers rise, the young eels swim off to find new places to live. In zoos and aquariums, electric eels have lived for 10 to 22 years.
Spawning takes place in the dry season. The Zoo reports that females lay 1,200 to 1,700 eggs and that males build nests of saliva and guard the larvae until the rainy season, care that may be a response to food competition and predation in the shrinking dry-season pools. Researchers still disagree on whether eggs are laid in successive batches or all at once.
When the floods return, juveniles disperse into newly connected habitat. Wild lifespan is unknown; in human care males typically live 10 to 15 years and females 12 to 22 years.
Talking with electricity
Electric eels send tiny electric messages to each other.
Other eels can feel these messages. They help eels know who is nearby.
Electric eels use weak electric pulses like a private radio. Each eel pulses at its own rhythm, and males and females pulse differently. Other eels can sense these signals and learn who is nearby, and in the breeding season, who is ready to mate.
Strong shocks are used to hunt and for defense. If a large animal threatens an electric eel in shallow water, the eel can even leap up and press against it to deliver its shock directly.
Weak electric organ discharges serve electrolocation and communication. Pulses are brief compared with the gaps between them, and their frequency differs between males and females and among individuals, carrying information about sex and receptivity (Smithsonian's National Zoo).
Strong discharges are energetically exhausting for the fish and are used in hunting and defense. Because water spreads current widely, a shock delivered through water is weaker for a large predator; the Zoo describes eels leaping from the water and pressing against a partly submerged threat, delivering pulses of increasing voltage. The Zoo links this to the dry season, when shallow pools leave little room to retreat.
Did you know?
Scientists found out there are three kinds of electric eel.
For 250 years everyone thought there was one electric eel species. In 2019, scientists showed there are three.
A 2019 study of 107 specimens split Electrophorus into E. electricus, E. voltai and E. varii; E. voltai produced 860 volts.
Rivers and people
Electric eels are not in danger.
There are plenty of them in their rivers. People who live nearby sometimes catch them for food.
The IUCN lists Electrophorus electricus as Least Concern, with a stable population. The main pressure it names is fishing: people catch electric eels for food and for aquariums, and scientists study them.
Electric eels have helped science too. Their electric organs inspired Alessandro Volta's first electric battery, and they recently encouraged scientists to build a new kind of battery from stacked layers of soft gel. Clean, healthy rivers keep them and their rainforest neighbors thriving.
The IUCN global assessment (assessed 2020, published 2023) lists E. electricus as Least Concern with a stable population trend, naming fishing and harvesting of aquatic resources as the threat and recording use for food, the pet trade and research. Because the species was split in 2019, its range is now much smaller than older accounts of electric eels suggest.
De Santana and colleagues note that electric eels inspired the design of Volta's first battery, supplied acetylcholinesterase for treating diseases of the nervous system, and encouraged a stacked hydrogel battery that could power medical implants. They suggest that the newly recognized species could reveal a hidden variety of substances and bioelectric functions.
IUCN Red List
How is the electric eel doing in the wild?
- Least Concern (this animal)
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable
- Endangered
- Critically Endangered
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Least Concern
Not at risk of disappearing from the wild right now.
See the IUCN Red List assessment · The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022.2
Amazing facts
-
An electric eel is not really an eel.
The electric eel is a knifefish. It is more closely related to catfish and carp than to true eels.
A gymnotiform knifefish, more closely related to catfish and carp than to true eels (Smithsonian's National Zoo).
-
Electric eels must swim up to breathe air.
Electric eels breathe air through their mouths. They surface again and again to take a gulp.
As obligate air-breathers, they meet most oxygen needs through a vascularized mouth lining rather than gills.
-
Electric eels gave a scientist the idea for a battery.
Electric eels inspired Alessandro Volta's design for the first electric battery.
De Santana et al. note that electric eels inspired Volta's first battery and, recently, a stacked hydrogel battery for medical implants.
-
Scientists found out there are three kinds of electric eel.
For 250 years everyone thought there was one electric eel species. In 2019, scientists showed there are three.
A 2019 study of 107 specimens split Electrophorus into E. electricus, E. voltai and E. varii; E. voltai produced 860 volts.
Words to know
- electric organ
- a body part made of special cells that produce electricity
- volt
- a unit that measures how strongly electricity pushes
- knifefish
- a group of South American fish with long, blade-shaped bodies
- carnivore
- an animal that eats other animals
- electrolocation
- finding things by sensing changes in an electric field
- oxbow lake
- a curved lake left behind when a river changes its course
Discovery challenge
-
What can an electric eel make?
What special thing can an electric eel's body make?
What do about 80 percent of an electric eel's body tissues produce?
- Electricity
- Light
- Bubbles of ice
Show the answer
Electricity
Electric eels make electricity inside their bodies.
Three electric organs make weak and strong electric pulses.
Three electric organs, making up about 80 percent of the body, generate weak and strong discharges.
-
Is an electric eel a real eel?
What kind of fish is the electric eel really?
To which group of fishes does the electric eel belong?
- A true eel
- A knifefish
- A shark
Show the answer
A knifefish
It is a knifefish, not a real eel.
It is a knifefish, more closely related to catfish and carp than to true eels.
It is a gymnotiform knifefish; over 220 species in its lineage use electric discharges.
-
How does an electric eel breathe?
How does an electric eel get most of its oxygen?
How does Electrophorus meet its oxygen needs?
- It gulps air at the surface
- It never needs air
- Through its tail
Show the answer
It gulps air at the surface
It swims up and gulps air.
It must surface to gulp air into a mouth lined with blood vessels.
It is an obligate air-breather using a vascularized, folded mouth lining.
-
Who looks after electric eel babies?
Which parent builds the nest and guards the young?
Which parent provides care in Electrophorus?
- The father
- Nobody
- A crocodile
Show the answer
The father
The dad makes a nest and guards the babies.
The male builds a nest of saliva and guards the young until the rains come.
Males build saliva nests and guard larvae through the dry season.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Explain how the electric eel uses weak and strong electric pulses for different jobs.
- Describe how its body is built around its electric organs and why it breathes air.
- Understand how scientists discovered in 2019 that electric eels are three species.
- Connect the electric eel to the history of batteries.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 12 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might sensing electricity be more useful than eyesight in a dark, muddy river?
- How could scientists tell that one 'species' was really three?
- What other inventions might have been inspired by animals?
Try at home or in class
- With a grown-up, build a simple circuit with a battery and a bulb, and compare it with how an eel's electric organs stack up.
- Lay out a string 2.5 meters long on the floor to see how long a big electric eel can be.
Key vocabulary: electric organ, volt, knifefish, carnivore, electrolocation, oxbow lake
Where these facts come from
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Electrophorus electricus, global assessment , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Electric eel , Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
- Unexpected species diversity in electric eels with a description of the strongest living bioelectricity generator (de Santana et al. 2019) , Nature Communications
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 27, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.