Unexpected species diversity in electric eels with a description of the strongest living bioelectricity generator

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 4000 - 10
• Main Authors: de Santana, C. David, Crampton, William G. R., Dillman, Casey B., Frederico, Renata G., Sabaj, Mark H., Covain, Raphaël, Ready, Jonathan, Zuanon, Jansen, de Oliveira, Renildo R., Mendes-Júnior, Raimundo N., Bastos, Douglas A., Teixeira, Tulio F., Mol, Jan, Ohara, Willian, Castro, Natália Castro e, Peixoto, Luiz A., Nagamachi, Cleusa, Sousa, Leandro, Montag, Luciano F. A., Ribeiro, Frank, Waddell, Joseph C., Piorsky, Nivaldo M., Vari, Richard P., Wosiacki, Wolmar B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 10-09-2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 45/23; 631/158/670; 631/181/2480; 631/601/2722; Animals; Biodiversity; Bioelectricity; Ecosystem; Eels; Electric discharges; Electric Organ - physiology; Electrophorus; Electrophorus - anatomy & histology; Electrophorus - classification; Electrophorus - genetics; Electrophorus - physiology; Electrophorus electricus; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hypotheses; Miocene; Mitochondrial DNA; Morphology; multidisciplinary; Museums; New species; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Pliocene; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); South America; Species diversity; Species Specificity; Zoology; South America
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11690-z

Is there only one electric eel species? For two and a half centuries since its description by Linnaeus,
Electrophorus electricus
has captivated humankind by its capacity to generate strong electric discharges. Despite the importance of
Electrophorus
in multiple fields of science, the possibility of additional species-level diversity in the genus, which could also reveal a hidden variety of substances and bioelectrogenic functions, has hitherto not been explored. Here, based on overwhelming patterns of genetic, morphological, and ecological data, we reject the hypothesis of a single species broadly distributed throughout Greater Amazonia. Our analyses readily identify three major lineages that diverged during the Miocene and Pliocene—two of which warrant recognition as new species. For one of the new species, we recorded a discharge of 860 V, well above 650 V previously cited for
Electrophorus
, making it the strongest living bioelectricity generator.
A single species of electric eel,
Electrophorus electricus
, has been described. Here, de Santana et al. show that there are three major lineages of
Electrophorus
distributed across Greater Amazonia and describe two new species, one with a much stronger electric discharge than was previously known.