African Electric Catfish

• Its electric organ, derived from the pectoral musculature, wraps around almost the whole body and produces discharges of several hundred volts.
• Its eyes are very small and it hunts and navigates almost entirely by its electrical discharges.
• It is most active in the four or five hours after dusk, which is when it concentrates its hunting.
• It appears in reliefs in ancient Egyptian tombs some 5,000 years old.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bony fish)

Habitat and environment

Rivers, lakes and floodplains of tropical Africa and the Nile; by day it shelters under stones and in crevices

Gestation / incubation

It breeds during high-water periods, in cavities or hollows that the pair digs out

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Malapterurus electricus · FishBase, Malapterurus electricus · A-Z Animals, ficha Electric catfish · Animal Diversity Web, Malapterurus electricus · FishBase, Malapterurus electricus (Ref. 7248, 44050) · FishBase, Malapterurus electricus (Ref. 44050)

Best time: It lives among rocks and roots, in slow or standing water, and hunts at night. Its distribution is typically Sudanian: the Nile (except Lake Victoria), Turkana, Chad, Senegal, the whole Niger system and smaller West African basins, from the Bandama to the Volta