Talk:Electrophorus electricus

message: 500 volts relative to what?  How is this measured? - Omegatron 21:17, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)
:There are tools that can measure voltage, and experiments have been done. Electriccatfish2 (talk) 14:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Presumably one end of the eel relative to the other. It would be good to have more on the physics of how it all works, don't have any refs myself. Stan 00:57, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: River water has a resistivity of 200 Ohm meters, so for every meter of distance between the terminals of an electrical device, there is 200 ohms. Because water acts like a continuous resistor, it's slightly different at every point around the eel, but supposing that an eel is 2 meters long, and a fish is 1 meter to its side, then the electric field line through the point where the fish is would be about 4 meters long, or causing 800 ohms of resistance. The fish itself probably has an internal resistance of 1000 ohms, so altogether 1800 ohms. 500 Volts / 1800 Ohms = 227 mA of current. This is enough to kill pretty much anything. The eel, however, can only maintain this for a few microseconds. --Dusvb (talk) 16:16, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

text: Yes, they can shock each other. Electriccatfish2 (talk) 14:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Query about voltage

message: I am seeing that it says 650 volts at the top and then 600 in the section after anatomy. I really need to know as I am doing a report on it -HeatherLion
Does the eel produce 650 volts or only 500?  The top of the article says 650 and the bottom says 500 --67.50.233.199 23:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inconsistancy

message: Here's a silly lyric I wrote about an electric eel:
*An electric eel, with the zeal of a seal
*Was trying like me to get out of the sea;
*When a mermaid appeared, and as we much feared
*Began living her day in a lack-a-day way, singing:
*"Electric eel, you have such a good appeal
*That I just do not feel you are real.
*So come to me here, I do need you near;
*I do need your shocks on these rocks."
Matt Stan 08:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electric Eel song 

message: It says the eel can produce 1 Amp of current or 500W of power. These statistics do not make sense without knowing how long the shock lasts.. clearly they can't produce 500W continuously 155.198.32.43 17:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How long do shocks last

message: There was a sentence that read: "The shock is not deadly for an adult human, while a large electric eel can shock a horse to death."
Now, that makes little sense. Firstly, I'm pretty sure that a horse can survive an electric shock better than a human. Second, the sentence originally did NOT include the word "not", that was changed later. Thirdly, if it IS "not", then the "while" makes no sense, and should be a "but" or something. 
I've changed it back to "The shock IS deadly", and I changed the while to an "and" to make the sentence flow better. 
I've done this mostly on grammatical comparison and what I hope is common sense. If someone knows better, please fix it, but make it read nicely. Thanks!
Trainik 21:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deadliness 

message: By doing that it creates electricity, and fires it at its prey
I don't believe you can "fire" electricity.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.8.59 (talk) 03:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To "fire" is a technical term often used in biology to describe what happens when a fast-acting organ or cell does its thing.  For instance, neurons "fire"; so do nematocysts (the organs jellyfish and such use to sting prey).  It seems reasonable that firing would also be the term for what an electric eel's electric organs do. 216.75.183.126 (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  For neurons it makes sense but I think in the context of an electric eel this word suggests some kind of exact aiming at prey in a form of an electric beam. In my mind this sentence produced the image of emperor Palpatine in Star Wars episode VI "firing" at Luke. I think many readers interpret the word "firing" as a form of beam instead of just discharging by touching the prey. 95.208.116.150 (talk) 11:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

text: Ordinary humans already conduct electricity.  That is verifiable by trivial experiment with a digital multimeter.  It is not plausible that an electric eel's electric organs could be transplanted into a human and remain functional so as to give the human the eel's zapping powers.  We don't have anything like that level of transplantation technology. 216.75.183.126 (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fires Electricity 

message: what did they call the electric eel before the discovery of electricity?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.185.80.187 (talk) 21:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: lol at this person providing the River Monsters URL.  Not only is it ridiculous to use Wikipedia as a source for another Wikipedia article, but Discovery network shows (such as Animal Planet) are the furthest from reliable nowadays.  If you take claims made on River Monsters to be true, you must also conclude Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster are real, that aliens were responsible for every one of man's great architectural achievements, and that the bible is 100% historically factual (but with all the violence and sexuality removed, of course).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.65.84.106 (talk) 15:18, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  electricity 

message: Are electric eels edible?
160.39.90.98 (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edible? 

message: Despite its name it is not an eel at all but rather a knifefish.  [...] Despite its name, the electric eel is not related to eels but is more closely related to catfish. -Koala man (talk) 15:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is it, despite its name? 

message: I think it would be really interesting to have an image of the anatomy of the fish. Shinobu (talk) 09:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anatomy image? 

message: Just to draw attention to a garbled sentence in the text (current version)
:These signals are what is thoughare emitted by the main organ [...etc...]
— Alan✉ 20:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Garbled sentence 

message: Removed mention of the non-English name "temblador" from the lead. This is English-language Wikipedia.  AFAIK, good en Wikipedia practice is not to include non-english names in articles. No mention of the name "temblador" (relative to this fish) found in English Google -Wikipedia. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 02:42, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed non-English name "temblador" 

message: Please add the following citation to the section on reproduction: 
Assuncao, M.I. da Silva and H.O. Schwassmann, 1995. Reproduction and larval development of Electrophorus electricus on Marajo Island (Para, Brazil). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwat. 6(2):175-184.
Gymnotus (talk) 14:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, thanks! haz (talk) 16:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from Gymnotus, 31 May 2010 

message: At the end of the article, reference number 5 has, right in the middle, "Expression error: Unrecognised word "jean"" in red. Why is this? Needs to be fixed.
195.234.27.10 (talk) 09:09, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. Algebraist 10:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from 195.234.27.10, 18 July 2010 

message: In the section Anatomy: "Electrophorus has a well developed sense of hearing. " There is no need for Electrophorus to be bold and italic there. Also I don't see why the subject has to be "electrophorus" instead of "electric eels" or "the electric eel"... This looks quite weird as it is. Rorrima (talk) 11:45, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit request

message: It can be deduced that since the electric eel is just the result of genetic information that is carried out through cellular dynamics..that this same genetic infomration can be utilized to synthesize a genome of a macro-scale organism that is capable of generating a virtually limit-less wattage potential (an immobile non-intelligent biochemical powerplant)..depending upon the glucose input. It should also be noted that it is theoretically plausible to encode biochemical pathways that are capable of creating the glucose necessary to run the processes of the organism.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glitterinsewield (talk • contribs) 08:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macro-scale Energy Synthesis 

message: Saying that an eel can deliver 1 Ampere current does not say it will generate a current of 1 Ampere to humans. The current is always calculated using Ohm's I = U / R. The error is often seen where certain sources have a max current. I believe this should be edited.
Wezkoh (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 18:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Rubbish (again) about Volts and Amperes

message: Last link in the article (to projecteel.com) is incorrect.
Iclemens (talk) 10:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Thanks. -Atmoz (talk) 14:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from Iclemens, 3 February 2011 

message: "Electrocution is due to current flow" isn't this phrase redundant?  Current is already a flow of electrons.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.136.8.137 (talk) 07:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Electrocution is due to current flow" 

message: Article about electric eels rising from the water to deliver a stronger shock, apparently in response to their perception of any conductor as a threat: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/14/550935136/its-like-an-electric-fence-sensation-says-scientist-who-let-an-eel-shock-his-arm 134.204.228.36 (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defensive behavior 

message: I was trying to confirm that the electric eel has poor vision. Remember reading that the repeated shocks damaged its own eyes. Long time ago, but I think the same source mentioned that the electric field could help sense the prey. Shanen (talk) 11:08, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It lives in turbid conditions that are pretty much "liquid mud". Even perfect eyes wouldn't see well. Animals in such environments rarely bother with good eyesight. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:01, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor vision due to eye damage? 

message: > As obligate air-breathers, electric eels must rise to the surface every ten minutes or so to inhale before returning to the bottom. Nearly eighty percent of the oxygen used by the fish is obtained in this way.
If that was true than the electric eel couldn't ever sleep, needing to run its brain and muscles continously for the frequent surface/dive cycles, but lack of sleep leads to death eventually? 91.83.173.143 (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Fish show some signs of behavioral rest and physiological "sleep" but it's not the same as in mammals. See Sleep in fish. If you have sources that would be relevant to electric eels, feel free to add a tidbit about rest. I didn't see anything promising in a very quick search. Rhinopias (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  The eel never sleeps? How can it avoid death from exhaustion that way? 

message: An article in Nature Communications proposes two new species, Electrophorus electricus, E. voltai, and E. varii.  E. electricus primarily occupies the Guiana Shield, E. voltai the Brazilian Shield, and E. varii the lowland Amazon Basin.
Primary source:
*
Suggested secondary sources:
*
* This source is not considered reliable
davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:20, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I took the liberty of adding the proposed names of the new species . If that's not ok, feel free to revert. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:45, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two proposed new species 

message: Somebody should tell C. David de Santana et al. that in Latin the genitive of Volta is Voltae, not Voltai. Sigh! Pasquale (talk) 23:08, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voltai 

message: I notice there's a section 'footnotes' and a section 'references'. The footnotes are nearly all references which makes it quite a mess, in my opinion. I don't know how to fix it, don't know what is the right way to merge them. Maybe someone can look into this. Cheers. Naamloze gebruiker (talk) 10:59, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  footnotes and references 

message: Can anyone provide a link to this source or confirm that it is real?
I've been trying to find it somewhere online but had no luck so far. The volume/issue numbers in the citation don't seem to make sense, considering the journal started in 1904 and was in the neighborhood of 270 volumes by 1995. So unless I'm looking in the wrong places, I'm not sure we can rely on it or the information about the shock being equivalent to that of a stun gun.
--StarStuffScience (talk) 23:00, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: nice catch. This is the list of articles by "Wheeler" in the journal - no dice. And I can't find any mention of that title anywhere, except in Wikipedia mirrors. So this looks to be a fake. Feel free to remove the passage entirely, or I can do it. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:19, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks! I knew that biology degree would finally come in handy. If you could remove the passage and the fake reference, I would appreciate it. I just made this account so it doesn't yet have permission to edit semi-protected pages. I suggest deleting everything after the first sentence of the paragraph that starts with "In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000..." and then merging that first sentence with the paragraph below it. Feel free to ignore me though and change it however you see fit. --StarStuffScience (talk) 20:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

text: While you're at it, you may or may not consider removing reference [10] "The Guardian: Shocking news: world's most powerful electric eel found in Amazon. Retrieved 11 Sep 2019" if you want. It's just a guardian article about reference [2] "de Santana, C. David (2019)", so it may just be a redundant secondary source. I'm still learning wikipedia's best practices so I apologize if that's a silly suggestion. --StarStuffScience (talk) 20:53, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this article exist? 

message: Since there are three species is is only logical that there be two more articles created  — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheDarkMaster2 (talk • contribs) 01:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily. Not every named species gets its own wikipedia article. There are about 1.15 million names species, and enwiki has 6.26 million articles..if one sixth of all the articles on enwiki were individual biological species, that would be a bit ridiculous. Firejuggler86 (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed split 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: moved, with Electrophorus (fish) also being moved to Electric eel. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk | contribs) 04:07, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Electric eel →  – See above. I think this one needs to be species-specific, and "Electric eel" should redirect to Electrophorus (fish). It'll only get worse over time if it's not done now. Also, large sections of this article probably rightly belong in the genus article. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, good point, . I think that this article would probably first need to be moved to Electrophorus electricus, then the appropriate content moved out of that one into the genus article, and then get the genus article moved over the remaining redirect (i.e. this page - Electric eel). This way all article histories will more accurately reflect what's occurred. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:51, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 23 May 2021