Electric eels shock with swarm hunting tactics

摘要

One Volta's electric eel - able to subdue small fish with an 860-volt jolt - is scary enough. Now imagine more than 100 eels swirling about, unleashing coordinated electric attacks. Such a sight was assumed to be only the stuff of nightmares, at least for prey. Researchers had long thought that these eels were solitary, nocturnal hunters that use their electric sense to find smaller fish as the fish sleep (SN: 1/10/15, p. 14). But in a remote region of the Amazon, groups of over 100 Volta's electric eels (Electrophorus voltai) hunt together, corralling thousands of smaller fish together to shock and devour them, researchers report online January 14 in Ecology and Evolution.